Yet the temple of Tanjore is the most simple and orderly of all its kind. Visit the great pagoda of Madura and you will come out mazed with Hinduism. All its mysteries and incongruities, its lofty metaphysics and its unabashed lewdness, seem to brood over the dark chambers and crannying passages. The place is enormous. Over the four chief gateways rise huge pyramid-towers, coloured like harlequins, red tigers jostling the multiplied arms and legs of blue and yellow gods and goddesses so thick that the gopuras seem built of them. In the pure sunlight you almost blush for their crudity, just as you would blush if the theatre roof were lifted off during a matinée. But inside the place is nearly all half-lighted, dim, and cryptic. You go through a labyrinth, that seems endless, of dark chambers and aisles. Now you are in thick blackness, now in twilight, now the sun falls on fretwork over pillared galleries and damp-smelling walls. But as the light falls on the pillar you start, for it is carved into the shape of an elephant-headed Ganesh, or a conventionally high-stepping Shiva. On you go, from maze to maze, till there is no more recollection of direction or guess at size: you are lost in an underground world of gods that are half devils; you hardly distinguish the silent-footed, gleaming-eyed attendants from the stone figures. Some of the fantastic images are smeared with red-lead to simulate blood: all drip with fat. A heavy smell of grease and stagnant tank-water loads your lungs. You feel that you are bewitched--lost and helpless among unclean things. When you come out into the sun and the cleaner dirt of the town, you draw long breaths. If you could understand the Hindu religion, you tell yourself, you would understand the Hindu mind. But that, being of the West, you never, never will. THE VENDRAMIN-CALERGI THÉOPHILE GAUTIER Following a vagabond method, let us regain the Grand Canal and give some details upon the Vendramin Palace, now occupied by the Duchesse de Berry. It is of a rich and noble architecture, probably by Pietro Lombardo; in the entablature and above the windows, little cherubs uphold storied shields adorned with exquisite taste, and contribute much elegance to this façade. A garden of somewhat restricted space contributes some green trees alongside this palace, which would not be distinguished from the others if the large white and blue posts with ropes did not indicate, by means of the fleur-de-lis painted upon them, a princely and semi-royal dwelling. After having obtained permission to visit this palace, _valets_ in green livery welcome you very politely at the base of the staircase, the steps of which are laved by the waters, fasten your boat to the posts, and take you into a vestibule, where you wait until all the formalities of admission are complied with.