At one time some were inclined to connect this remarkable local distribution with the comparative proximity of the west side of India to the rock-cutting Egyptians and Ethiopians. But the coincidence can be more simply accounted for by the existence in both countries of rocks perfectly adapted to such works. The great cave district of western India is composed of horizontal strata of amygdaloid and other cognate trap formations, generally speaking of very considerable thickness and great uniformity of texture, and possessing besides the advantage that their edges are generally exposed in perfectly perpendicular cliffs. No rock in any part of the world could either be more suited for the purpose or more favourably situated than these formations. They were easily accessible and easily worked. In the rarest possible instances are there any flaws or faults to disturb the uniformity of the design; and, when complete, they afford a perfectly dry temple or abode, singularly uniform in temperature, and more durable than any class of temple found in any other part of the world. From the time of Asoka, who, two hundred and fifty years before Christ, excavated the first cave at Rajagriha, till the great cataclysm in the 8th century, the series is uninterrupted; and, if properly examined and drawn, the caves would furnish us with a complete religious and artistic history of the greater part of India during ten or eleven centuries, the darkest and most perplexing of her existence. But, although during this long period the practice was common to Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains, it ceased before the Mahomedan conquest. Hardly any excavations have been made or attempted since that period, except, perhaps, some rude Jaina monoliths in the rock at Gualior, and it may be one or two in southern India. BEHAR CAVES. As might be expected from what we know of the history of the localities, the oldest caves in India are situated in Behar, in the neighbourhood of Rajagriha, which was the capital of Bengal at the time of the advent of Buddha. There is, indeed, one cave there which claims to be the Satapanni cave, in front of which the first convocation was held B.C. 543. It is, however, only a natural cave very slightly improved by art, and of no architectural importance. [Illustration: 42. Nigope Cave, Sat Ghurba group.]