Our journey around the world; an illustrated record of a year's travel of forty thousand . the temple is a stone bull, which is thecharacteristic divinity of Southern India. This particularbull sits in a stone bath tub, which was built around him atthe time of the last great famine in 1877, in the hope, Isuppose, that if he sat in the water himself he would causethe rains to descend upon the parched fields over which hepresided as the tutelary divinity. His tub has remained 320 AN IDOL S YEARLY OUTING. there ever since, though when I saw it it was very dry anddusty. In another part of
Our journey around the world; an illustrated record of a year's travel of forty thousand . the temple is a stone bull, which is thecharacteristic divinity of Southern India. This particularbull sits in a stone bath tub, which was built around him atthe time of the last great famine in 1877, in the hope, Isuppose, that if he sat in the water himself he would causethe rains to descend upon the parched fields over which hepresided as the tutelary divinity. His tub has remained 320 AN IDOL S YEARLY OUTING. there ever since, though when I saw it it was very dry anddusty. In another part of Madura is a vast sacred tank, whichholds a large amount of water. In the middle of thisartificial lake is a beautiful little island containing a mostelaborate and costly temple. To this temple, once a year,over the green and slimy waters of the tank, the chief godof the Madura temple is carried in great state on a great event causes a vast commotion among the people,who flock to see the god take his yearly airing, his ride ona raft to the temple and, if I mistake not, his bath in the. THE SACRED TANK OF MADURA. sacred tank. Certainly all the gods that I saw in theMadura temple looked as if they were sadly in need of atleast an annual bath. The palace of Madura is another building remarkablefor its architectural grandeur and imposing effect. It rivals,in my opinion, the Vatican of Rome. In fact, I have rarelyseen in any land a building which so impressed me with itslofty arches and its noble Byzantine columns. It is supposed that a Mahommedan architect must havedesigned this building for the immensely wealthy rajahwho erected the temple and the palace. Now, however,even the memory of the architect, who, in his way, musthave been a prince of the guild, has passed away. The THE TEMPLE AT TANJORE. 321 palace is no longer in the hands of the family that built it,but is occupied by the British government for its courtrooms and offices, and for this purpose it affords a most
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade189, booksubjectvoyagesaroundtheworld
