How many have fallen victims at thy shrine! victims of a mistaken zeal! Yet in India hast thou been most misrepresented. There have perished the human hecatomb yearly in thy service—there thou hast assumed those distorted forms borrowed from the visible effects in tropic nature—there have thy attributes been measured by the violent passions of thy dusky worshipers—yet, while thou hast thus sacrificed India’s race, thou hast left for later eyes those striking monuments of thy power, thy temples and shrines—those stupendous fanes which though sometimes grotesque are often sublime. In India’s lotus has arisen the leafy capitals of Grecian pillars. Thus is thy task not all in vain—thy bounty not all misplaced—for as the Goths have borrowed their arching aisles and groined roofs from the similitude of their sombre forests, so have the more graceful forms of Egyptian simplicity and Corinthian elegance had their origin among the lilies of the Ganges. The stupendous subterranean temples at _Elephantum_ are destined to receive the returning priest Nikaiyah and his gentle charge; and within those awful precincts many a stout soul would have shrank with as timid horror as did Ganga. Many days and nights had they passed in the wilderness, when, wearied with their long journey, the pious pair at length emerged from the forest. How pleasant the return of the sweet sunlight, the birds and the fragrant meadows. By day they had wandered on through the devious maze, pathless mid the thickset jungle, often forcing their way through the tangled vines and creepers which had with parasite embrace overcome some stately trunk which, withered now, lay lifeless in their tortuous folds. Gayly the old monarch of the forest had stood decked in his gorgeous livery, adorned with borrowed foliage—soon had they surpassed his towering height and wound him in as fatal a shroud as to Hercules was Creusa’s bridal garment. Thus ever shines most beautiful the destined one at the moment of ruin’s approach. By night they would retire to some sheltered nook, and there, lighted by the fireflies and lulled by the monotonous _cicada_, pass the hours of darkness—the tiger prowled round them and respected their sacred mission—the serpent averted his basilisk gaze when he met the full eye of the maiden. Now were all these perils past—they had come to the holy place guarded by the care of the Brahmins—and now Ganga, curious, surveys the open, fertile country—sees other maids as fair as she, and other men more manly than Nikaiyah—but the untaught child of nature was free from the vices of civilization and clung steadfastly to her old and well-tried protector. Anon they pass by the groups of penitents, whose distorted limbs and painful postures denote their self-imposed penance—these linger round the outer limits of the holy of holies like the thieves round a wonted prison, or as it seemed to them, like the wicked at the gates of Paradise.