bharata, 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 th