how hunting scenes
and battles, drawn with great vigour and of huge size; others have
pictures of peacocks, elephants, apes, and other animals.

The architecture of these caves is very fine. We can hardly imagine the
enormous labour of cutting out the deep ribs of the roof, the light
twisted pillars, and elaborate framework for pictures which adorn the
galleries. The marvel is how human hands could have done such work,
especially when we remember that the natives of India, like those of
Egypt, who did great feats in rock architecture, had the smallest and
most delicately-shaped hands of all human races.

[Illustration: The Rock Temple of Kailus at Ellora.]

There are thirty-four distinct rock-temples at Ellora, near Aurangabad,
in India. Most of them are of the usual pattern of cave-temples, some
the work of Buddhists, others of a sect called Jains, who are famous for
kindness to animals. The more modern ones are built by Brahmins, and
these are the true marvels of Ellora, though they can hardly be
accounted as cave-temples, being cut bodily out of the rock outside as
well as inside. The way in which these monuments of industry were
probably built was as follows:--The builders first marked off a large
square of the cliff, and outside this square dug a wide deep trench,
leaving an immense mass of stone standing in the centre. Out of this
mass, which may or may not have contained natural caverns, they cut a
magnificent temple, standing on a raised platform, and adorned with
domes, galleries, colossal statues of animals and the richest forms of
ornament. Fancy the patient toil, lasting year after year, even when the
outside was finished, of scooping out the interior, with its great halls
and passages!

The most wonderful of these temples is called 'Kailus,' and is dedicated
to Siva the Destroyer. It has a great court, in which are ponds,
obelisks, figures of the Sphinx, and other ornaments, whilst in the
middle stands an immense group of elephants. Above these huge creatures,
rows of stately columns, in four tiers, one above the other, support the
actual temple, and the effect is so light that the building seems to be
hung in the air.

Kailus is the sacred mountain in Thibet, from which flow the four great
rivers of India, and every year thousands of pilgrims toil in solemn
procession round its ice-covered rocks, to bathe in the waters of the
sacred Lake Manseroeur, which lies below.

HELENA HEATH.

[Illustration: