sect-marks on their brows. Generations of superior folk, carefully nurtured, highly educated and cultivated in Brahman lore, have produced these splendid specimens of their race, these fine intellectual faces and athletic bodies overlaid with dark-brown skin of a grain and patina finer than any inanimate bronze—aristocrats of thirty centuries' direct descent.
They looked at us, their prey, with eager interest, and with shouts appropriate to those about to offer living sacrifice to the gods; with whoops and hurrahs this band of Brahmans conducted us to the main shrine and struck the gong to announce our presence to the god—an ugly, greasy, black little image, hidden somewhere out of sight in an innermost sanctuary. We saw only an open-fronted chapel, whose floor was three or four feet above the level of the court-yard; and as we advanced to it the priests brought gold plates heaped with garlands of strung flowers, which they flung around our necks. The gold plate was extended for our offerings, and at sight of the rupees of propitiation the Brahmans pushed, pointed, gesticulated, and shouted to one another. Only the Arabs of the Nile, or the boat-women of Canton, could raise such din and hullabaloo, produce such waves and volumes of harsh, ear-splitting sounds. It seemed as if they were about to tear us to pieces and were quarreling about the lead, but it was only intense interest, pleased excitement, and glee at the prospect of another gala day for Chidambram, with a fine lot of rupees to be divided afterward among the charter members of the
