down to make a sketch of the great compartments opposite to the entrance, and on our return to Bombay, comparing the drawing with those in Niebuhr, we were satisfied that its resemblance to the original is the most correct. I am sorry to observe, that the pillars and sculptures of the cave are defaced in every part, by having the names of most who visit them either carved or daubed with black chalk upon them; and the intemperate zeal of the Portagueze, who made war upon the gods and temples, as well as upon the armies of India, added to the havock of time, bas reduced this stupendous monument of idolatry to a state of ruin. Fragments of statues strew the floor; columns, deprived of their bases, are suspended from the parent roof, and others without capitals, and sometimes split in two, threaten to leave the massy hill that covers them without support. "The temple of Elephanta, and other equally wonderful caverns in the neighbourhood, must have been the works of a people far advanced in the arts of civilized life, and possessed of wealth and power; bu these were lodged in the hands of a crafty priesthood, who kept science, affluence, and honour for their own fraternity, and, possessed of better ideas, preached a miserable and degrading superstition to the multitude. It would be curious to follow out the advancement and fall of the arts which produced such monuments; but not a trace of their history remains, and we are left to seek it in the natural progress of a people subtle and ingenious, but depressed by superstition, and the utter impossibility of rising individually, by any virtues or any talents, to a higher rank in society than that occupied by their forefathers. "The local histories of the Braminical establishments, which could have thrown light on these and other curious subjects, have long been destroyed. Many of them perished during the contentions between the followers of Siva and those of Vishnu, prior to the Mahomedan conquest of India, and probably many more when the Hindoo temples were pillaged by those fierce conquerors." PICTURESQUE SURVEY OF WATER, WOOD, AND MOUNTAIN SCENEEJ, "W [From the Philosophy of Nature.] HERE a spring rises or a river flows,' says Seneca, there should we build altars and offer sacrifices!'-In pursuance of this idea, most nations, whether barbarous or refined, mistaking the effects of a deity for the Deity itself, have, at one time or other of their history, personified their rivers, and addressed them as the gods of their idolatry.-The Nile, which watered nations that knew not its origin, and kingdoms, which were ignorant whither it flowed, was worshipped by the respective nations that it fertilized.-The Adonis was esteemed sacred by a great portion of western Asia; the Peneus, as we are informed by that elegant platonist, Maximus Tyrius, was L was adored for its beauty, the Da- "Rivers, too, have, in sìl ages, Milton enjoyed the happiest maments of his life; on the banks of the Ilyssus, Plato taught his System of Philosophy; and on the shores of the Roces bad, a river flowing near the chapel of Mosella, the poets and philosophers of Shiraz composed their most celebrated works. Ossian is never weary of comparing rivers to heroes; and so enamoured were Du Bartas and Drayton with river scenery, that the one wrote a poetical catalogue of those which were the most celebrated, and the other composed a voluminous work upon their History, Topography, and Landscapes. "Many of the rivers in Britain are highly picturesque, and abound in the most captivating scenery.Who, that has traversed the banks of the majestic Thames, and still more noble Severn; who, that has observed the fine sweeps of the Dee, in the vale of Landisilio, and those of the Derwent, near Matlock; who, that has contemplated the waters of the Towy, the graceful meanderings of the Usk, or the admirable features of the Wye, that does not feel himself justified in challenging any of the far-famed. rivers of Europe to present objects more various, landscapes more rich, or scenes more graceful and magnificent? "Without rocks or mountains no country can be sublime; without water no landscape can be perfectly beautiful. Few countries are more mountainous, or exhibit better materials for a landscape painter, than Persia; yet, to the lover of scenery, it loses a considerable portion of interest, from its possessing but few springs, few rivulets, and fewer rivers. What can be more gratifying to a proud and inquisitive spirit "On the borders of the Cam, than tracing rivers to their sources, 1813. Q and and pursuing them through long tracts of country, where sweeps the Don, the Wolga, and the Vistula; the Ebro and the Fouro; the Rhine, the Inn, the Rhone and the Danube? or in travelling on the banks of the Allier, described so beautifully by Madame de Savigné; or of the Loire-sleeping, winding and rolling, by turns, through several of the finest districts in all France? where, the peasants reside, in the nidst of their vineyards, in cottages, which, seated upon the sides of the hills, resemble so many birds' nests; and where the peasant girls, with their baskets of grapes, invite the weary traveller to take as many as he desires. Take them,' say they, and as many as you please :-they shall cost you nothing." "What travelling, possessing an elegant taste, but is charmed, even to ecstasy, as he wanders along the banks of the Po, the Adige, and the Brenta; amid the fairy scenes of the Eurotas, peopled with innume. rable swans; or of the Tay, the Clyde, and the Teih, where the culture of bees forms a considerable article of rural economy? How is our fancy elevated, when we traverse, even in imagination, those wild solitudes and fruitful deserts, enlivened by the humming bird, through which the Orionoco, the Mississippi, and the Amazon, (Rivers to which the proudest streams of Europe are but as rivulets, pour . their vast floods, and, as they roll along, experience the vicissitudes of every climate! And, when leaning on the parapet of an arch, bestriding a wide and rapid river, how often do we relapse into profound melancholy, as, following, with implicit obedience, the progressive march of association, the mirror of time and the emblem of eternity are presented to our imagination, till a retrospect of the past and a perspective of future ages, mingling with each other, the mind is lost in the mazes of its own wanderings! Not only rivers, but fountains have been held sacred by almost every nation :-equally are they beloved by the poets. Who has not perused, with pleasure, Sannazaro's ode to the Fountain of Mergillini; Petrarch's addresses to that of Vaucluse; and Horace's ode to the Fountain of Blandusium, situated among rocks, and surrounded with wood? "One of the most remarkable fountains, in antient times, was that of which Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus have transmitted an account, It was called the Fountain of the Sun,' and was situated near the temple of Jupiter Aminon. At the dawn of day this fountain was warm; as the day advanced, it became progressively cool; at noon, it was at the extremity of cold; at which time the Ammonians made use of it to water their gardens and shrubberies.-At the setting of the sun, it again became warm, and continued to increase, as the evening proceeded, till midnight, when it reached the extremity of heat: - as the morning advanced it grew progressively cold:-Silius Italicus thus alludes to it. Stet fano vicina, novum et memorabile lympha, Quæ nascente die, quæ deficiente te» Quæque riget medium cum Sol ascendit Atque eadem rursus nocturnis fervet in "In the early ages of popery the common people, where fountains and wells were situated in retired placés, places, were accustomed to honour them with the titles of saints and martyrs. Some were called Jacob's Well; St. John's; St. Mary's; St. Winifred's, and St. Agnes :-some were named after Mary Magdalen, and others derived their appellations from beautiful and pious virgins. Though this custom was forbidden by the canons of St. Anselm, many pilgrimages continued to be made to them; and the Romans long retained a custom of throwing nosegays into fountains, and chaplets into wells. From this practice originated the ceremony of sprink ling the Severn with flowers, so elegantly described by Dyer, in his finely descriptive poem of the Fleece, and so beautifully alluded to by Milton. The shepherds at their festivals, Carol her good deeds loud in rustic lays, And throw sweet garland-wreaths into her s'ream, Of pancles, pinks, and gaudy daffodils. Comus. A custom also prevailed in the fourteenth century, among the women who resided upon the banks of the Rhine, of assembling, on a particular day of the year, to wash their hauds and arms in that river: fondly flattering themselves, that such lustrations would preserve them from all dangers and misfortunes during the remainder of the year. "The names of deities were given also to Grottos. The serenity of an Italian sky served to render those occasional retreats peculiarly agree. able to the Roman nobility; hence were they frequently to be found in the shrubberies and gardens of that accomplished people. The poets, at all times willing to celebrate whatever adds to their enjoyments, have left us some elegant descriptions of those delightful recesses, formed in the sides of rocks, at the foot of mountains, or on the banks of rivulets. "Pausanias gives a remarkable account of a Grotto at Corycium, and Statius describes an elegant one in his third Sylva; but that which was the most celebrated in antient times, was the Grotto of Egeria; still existing, though in a state of ruin. When it was first made by Numa, it was formed with such skill, as to appear totally untouched by art: in the reign of one of the emperors, however, it entirely lost its simplicity, and, by being adorned with marble and other splendid ornaments, acquired a magnificence totally foreign to its original character. This provoked the Satire of the indignant Juvenal. "The Grotto, which Mr. Pope formed at Twickenham, was one of the most celebrated ever erected in this kingdom. In the first instance, it was remarkable for its elegant simplicity as the owner, however, advanced in-years, it became more and more indebted to the refinements of art; but the recollection of its having amused the last years of that illustrious poet, atones to the heart of the philanthropist, what it loses to the eye of imagination and bour and pleasure were indulged by Gibbon on their admirable banks, the noble landscapes, around the lake of Zurich, soothed and charmed many an hour of sorrow and chagrin from the bosoms of Haller, Zimmermann, and Lavater! "For my own part, my Lelius, I am ready to confess, that some of the happiest moments of my life, have been those, which I have, at ntervals, past upon the bosom of Lakes, and on the banks of wild and rapid rivers. And never will Colonna wish to forget those hours of rapture, when, reclining in his boat, he has permitted it to glide, at the will of the current, along the transparent surface of a river, or on the picturesque expanse of Bala Lake, in the county of Merioneth:-or when wandering along the banks of those waters, that glide at the feet or stud the sides of the mountains, which rear themselves around the magnificent peaks of Snowdon: lakes equal in beauty and sublimity to those of Larus, Lucerne, and Pergusa. "How often have I heard you, my Lelius, descant with rapture on the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland; on those of Loch-Lomond, Loch-Leven, and Killarney; and the still more noble and magnificent ones of Switzerland!-With what delighted attention have I listened to your descriptions of the lakes of Thun, Zurich, and Neufchatel, Brientz, Bienne, and Cónstance and how has my imagination kept pace with you in your journey, as you have wandered in memory among those enchanting regions; regions, abounding in scenes, which Warton might have pictured, as the native residence of poetic fancy. "From lakes, the transition is natural, that would lead to waterfalls and cataracts.—With what rapture does every cultivated mind behold that beautiful waterfall, gliding over a slate rock in two graceful falls, at the extremity of a long, winding, and remantic glen, near Aber, in the county of Caernarvon! But if you would see cataracts on a grander scale, visit the falls of the Hepsey, those of the Conway, the Cynfael, and the Black Cataract near the vale of Ffestiniog.-Of the two last, nothing can surpass the beauty of the one, or the bold, the cragged and gigantic character of the other. By the former of these has Colonna devoted many a captivating hour.--Seated on a rock, adjoining an ivy-arched bridge, stretched over a tremendous chasm, he has listene with rapture, not unmingled with a grateful degree of terror, to the roaring of the waters, and shaded by a fantastic oak, which overshadows the depth, he has derived the highest satisfaction in comparing the tranquil and innocent delight, in which he was indulging, with the boisterous humours of the table, the cankered anxiety of the statesman, or the dreadful raptures of that man, who has so long insulted all Europe, and stained her glens, her mountains, and her valleys, with blood, with rapin, and with sacrilege! "But if you would behold one of those waterfalls, which combine the utmost sublimity with the greatest portion of beauty, visit the admirable instance at Nant Mill, on the borders of the Lake Gwellin.-Exercise that fascinating art, of which nature and practice have made you such a master; make a faithful representation of it; clothe it in all its rugged horrors of sublimity, in all its graceful charms of exquisite beauty, |