From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan | Page 3

torn out and sent as a present to the King Dom
Juan III, disappeared mysteriously in the course of time....," and adds,
further, "Close to this big pagoda there stood another, and farther on

even a third one, the most wonderful of all in beauty, incredible size,
and richness of material. All those pagodas and caves have been built
by the Kings of Kanada, (?) the most important of whom was Bonazur,
and these buildings of Satan our (Portuguese) soldiers attacked with
such vehemence that in a few years one stone was not left upon
another...." And, worst of all, they left no inscriptions that might have
given a clue to so much. Thanks to the fanaticism of Portuguese
soldiers, the chronology of the Indian cave temples must remain for
ever an enigma to the archaeological world, beginning with the
Brah-mans, who say Elephanta is 374,000 years old, and ending with
Fergusson, who tries to prove that it was carved only in the twelfth
century of our era. Whenever one turns one's eyes to history, there is
nothing to be found but hypotheses and darkness. And yet Gharipuri is
mentioned in the epic Mahabharata, which was written, according to
Colebrooke and Wilson, a good while before the reign of Cyrus. In
another ancient legend it is said that the temple of Trimurti was built on
Elephanta by the sons of Pandu, who took part in the war between the
dynasties of the Sun and the Moon, and, belonging to the latter, were
expelled at the end of the war. The Rajputs, who are the descendants of
the first, still sing of this victory; but even in their popular songs there
is nothing positive. Centuries have passed and will pass, and the
ancient secret will die in the rocky bosom of the cave still unrecorded.
On the left side of the bay, exactly opposite Elephanta, and as if in
contrast with all its antiquity and greatness, spreads the Malabar Hill,
the residence of the modern Europeans and rich natives. Their brightly
painted bungalows are bathed in the greenery of banyan, Indian fig, and
various other trees, and the tall and straight trunks of cocoanut palms
cover with the fringe of their leaves the whole ridge of the hilly
headland. There, on the south- western end of the rock, you see the
almost transparent, lace-like Government House surrounded on three
sides by the ocean. This is the coolest and the most comfortable part of
Bombay, fanned by three different sea breezes.
The island of Bombay, designated by the natives "Mambai," received
its name from the goddess Mamba, in Mahrati Mahima, or Amba,
Mama, and Amma, according to the dialect, a word meaning, literally,
the Great Mother. Hardly one hundred years ago, on the site of the
modern esplanade, there stood a temple consecrated to Mamba-Devi.

With great difficulty and expense they carried it nearer to the shore,
close to the fort, and erected it in front of Baleshwara the "Lord of the
Innocent"--one of the names of the god Shiva. Bombay is part of a
considerable group of islands, the most remarkable of which are
Salsetta, joined to Bombay by a mole, Elephanta, so named by the
Portuguese because of a huge rock cut in the shape of an elephant
thirty-five feet long, and Trombay, whose lovely rock rises nine
hundred feet above the surface of the sea. Bombay looks, on the maps,
like an enormous crayfish, and is at the head of the rest of the islands.
Spreading far out into the sea its two claws, Bombay island stands like
a sleepless guardian watching over his younger brothers. Between it
and the Continent there is a narrow arm of a river, which gets gradually
broader and then again narrower, deeply indenting the sides of both
shores, and so forming a haven that has no equal in the world. It was
not without reason that the Portuguese, expelled in the course of time
by the English, used to call it "Buona Bahia."
In a fit of tourist exaltation some travellers have compared it to the Bay
of Naples; but, as a matter of fact, the one is as much like the other as a
lazzaroni is like a Kuli. The whole resemblance between the former
consists in the fact that there is water in both. In Bombay, as well as in
its harbour, everything is original and does not in the least remind one
of Southern Europe. Look at those coasting vessels and native boats;
both are built in the likeness of the sea bird "sat," a kind of kingfisher.
When in motion these boats are the personi-fication of grace, with their
long prows and rounded poops. They look as if they were gliding
backwards, and one might mistake for wings the strangely shaped,