CHAPTER V
MADRAS AND THE SEVEN PAGODAS
E had expected to have another feast of jewels at Conjeveram, the Benares of southern India, but at Chingleput Junction the constable from that sacred city was waiting to tell us that we could not see the temple jewels, owing to a recent theft of three thousand rupees' worth of treasure and the arrest of the head high priest, who held one of the five keys. "I have just brought forty Brahmans up with me as witnesses. There has been a big quarrel on among the high-caste families, one trying to run the other out; but as all the temple offices, even the keepers of the oil, are hereditary, only civil suits and criminal imprisonment ever oust them. Each steals a little from the god himself, but does not want any one else to do so."
When we arrived at the great railway station of Madras, the largest and oldest city in southern India, with a population of half a million, there were no European vehicles to be had—only bullock-carts and the bandbox jutkas, or native pony-cabs. "There is a convention of Theosophists on now," said the station-master in explanation, but he could not tell what people with astral bodies wanted with material cabs.
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