other times any man going to the place is destroyed instantly. Nothing on earth would have persuaded the Nayar or the Kurichchiyan to cross that river. Orpheus proceeding to find his Eurydice, Danté about to enter the Inferno, had not embarked on so fearful a journey. About a hundred yards beyond the stream, we came upon the sacred spot, a little glade in the forest. In the centre of the glade is a circle of piled up stones, 12 feet in diameter. In the middle of the pile of stones is a rude lingam. Running east from the circle of the lingam is a long shed, in the middle of which is a long raised platform of brick, used apparently as a place for cooking. Around the lingam there were also thatched sheds, in which the people had lodged during the festival. Pilgrims going to this festival carry with them offerings of some kind. Tiyans take young cocoanuts. Every one who returns brings with him a swish made of split young leaves of the cocoanut palm." Of the Kottiyur festival, the following account is given in the Gazetteer of Malabar. "The Nambudiri priests live in a little wayside temple at Kottiyur, but the true shrine is a quarter of a mile away in the forest across one of the feeder streams of the Valarpattanam river. For eleven months in the year, the scene is inconceivably desolate and dreary; but during the month Edavam (May-June) upwards of 50,000 Nayars and Tiyans from all parts of Malabar throng the shrine for the twenty-eight days of the annual festival. During the rest of the year, the temple is given up to the revels of Siva and Parvati, and the impious Hindu who dares to intrude is consumed instantly to ashes. The two great ceremonies are the Neyyattam and the Elanirattam, the pouring of ghee (clarified butter) and the pouring of the milk of the green cocoanut. The former is performed by the Nayars, who attend the festival first, and the latter by Tiyans. In May, all roads lead to Kottiyur, and towards the middle of the month the ghee pourers, as the Nayar pilgrims are called, who have spent the previous four weeks in fasting and purificatory rites, assemble in small shrines subordinate to the Kottiyur temple. Thence, clad in white, and bearing each upon his head a pot of ghee, they set forth in large bodies headed by a leader. At Manattana the pilgrims from all parts of Malabar meet, and thence to Kottiyur the procession is unbroken. However long their journey, the pilgrims must eat only once, and the more filthy their language, the more orthodox is their conduct. As many as five thousand pots of ghee are poured over the lingam every year. After the Neyyattam ceremony, the Nayars depart, and it is the turn of the Tiyans. Their preparations are similar to those of the Nayars, and their language en route is even more startling. Eruvatti near Kadirur is the place where most of them assemble for their pilgrimage, and their green cocoanuts are presented gratis by the country people as an offering to the temple.