"Thrice in the year they keep festivals of especial solemnity. On one of these occasions the males and females of all ages, having bathed in the rivers or the sea, clothe themselves in new garments, and spend three entire days in singing, dancing, and feasting. On another of these festivals they fix up within their temples, and on the outside on the roofs, an innumerable number of lamps of oil of SUSIMANNI, which are kept burning day and night. On the third, which lasts nine days, they set up in all the highways large beams, like the masts of small ships, to the upper part of which are attached pieces of very beautiful cloth of various kinds, interwoven with gold. On the summit of each of these beams is each day placed a man of pious aspect, dedicated to religion, capable of enduring all things with equanimity, who is to pray for the favour of God. These men are assailed by the people, who pelt them with oranges, lemons, and other odoriferous fruits, all which they bear most patiently. There are also three other festival days, during which they sprinkle all passers-by, even the king and queen themselves, with saffron water, placed for that purpose by the wayside. This is received by all with much laughter." The first of these festivals may be the Kanarese New Year's Day, which Domingo Paes in his chronicle asserts to have fallen, during his visit to Vijayanagar, on October 12 -- "FESTAS EM QUE TODOS VESTEM PANOS NOVOS E RICOS E GALANTES, E CADA HUU COMO O TEM, E DAO TODOS OS CAPITAEES PANOS A TODA SUA GNETE DE MUYTAS CORES E GALANTES."[127] The second should be the Dipavali festival, which occurs about the month of October, when lamps are lighted by all the householders, and the temples are illuminated. The description of the third answers to the nine-days' festival, called the MAHANAVAMI, at Vijayanagar, which, during the visit of Paes, took place on September 12. The other feast of three days' duration answers to the HOLI festival. Conti next describes the finding of diamonds on a mountain which he called "Albenigaras" and places fifteen days' journey beyond Vijayanagar "towards the north." He repeats the story which we know as that of "Sinbad the Sailor," saying that the diamonds lie in inaccessible valleys, into which lumps of flesh being thrown, to which the precious stones adhere, these are carried up TO the summits by eagles, which are then driven off and the stones secured. The direction given, though it should rather be east than north, points to the mines on the Krishna river being those alluded to -- mines which are often styled the "mines of Golkonda" by travellers. Marco Polo told the same tale of the same mines in the year 1296. Conti continues: -- "They divide the year into twelve months, which they name after the signs of the zodiac. The era is computed variously...."