e. This great architect,
but very mediocre archeologist, proclaimed at the very beginning of
his scientific career that "all the cave temples of Kanara, without
exception, were built between the fifth and the tenth centuries." This
theory became generally accepted, when suddenly Dr. Bird found a brass
plate in a certain Kanara monument, called a tope. The plate announced
in pure and distinct Sanskrit that this tope was erected as a homage
to the old temple, at the beginning of 245 of the Hindu astronomical
(Samvat) era. According to Prinsep and Dr. Stevenson, this date
coincides with 189 A.D., and so it clearly settles the question of when
the tope was built. But the question of the antiquity of the temple
itself still remains open, though the inscription states that it was
an old temple in 189 A.D., and contradicts the above-quoted opinion of
Fergusson. However, this important discovery failed to shake Fergusson's
equanimity. For him, ancient inscriptions are of no importance, because,
as he says, "the antiquity of ruins must not be fixed on the basis
of inscriptions, but on the basis of certain architectural canons and
rules," discovered by Mr. Fergusson in person. Fiat hypothesis, ruat
coelum!

And now I shall return to my narrative.

Straight before the entrance a door leads to another hall, which is
oblong, with hexagonal pillars and niches, containing statues in a
tolerable state of preservation; goddesses ten feet and gods nine feet
high. After this hall there is a room with an altar, which is a regular
hexagon, having sides each three feet long, and protected by a cupola
cut in the rock. Nobody was admitted here, except the initiates of the
mysteries of the adytum. All round this room there are about twenty
priests' cells. Absorbed in the examination of the altar, we did not
notice the absence of the colonel, till we heard his loud voice in the
distance calling to us:

"I have found a secret passage.... Come along, let us find where it
leads to!"

Torch in hand, the colonel was far ahead of us, and very eager to
proceed; but each of us had a little plan of his own, and so we were
reluctant to obey his summons. The Babu took upon himself to answer for
the whole party:

"Take care, colonel. This passage leads to the den of the glamour....
Mind the tigers!"

But once fairly started on the way to discoveries, our president was not
to be stopped. Nolens volens we followed him.

He was right; he had made a d