The general appearance of these corridors may be gathered from the annexed woodcut (No. 201), but no engraving, even on a much more extended scale, can convey the impression produced by such a display of labour when extended to an uninterrupted length of 700 ft. None of our cathedrals are more than 500 ft., and even the nave of St. Peter’s is only 600 ft. from the door to the apse. Here the side corridors are 700 ft. long, and open into transverse galleries as rich in detail as themselves. These, with the varied devices and modes of lighting, produce an effect that is not equalled certainly anywhere in India. The side corridors are generally free from figure-sculpture, and consequently, from much of the vulgarity of the age to which they belong, and, though narrower, produce a more pleasing effect. The central corridor leading from the sanctuary is adorned on one side by portraits of the rajas of Ramnad in the 17th century, and opposite them, of their secretaries. Even they, however, would be tolerable, were it not that within the last few years they have been painted with a vulgarity that is inconceivable on the part of the descendants of those who built this fane. Not only they, however, but the whole of the architecture has first been dosed with repeated coats of whitewash, so as to take off all the sharpness of detail, and then painted with blue, green, red, and yellow washes, so as to disfigure and destroy its effect to an extent that must be seen to be believed. Nothing can more painfully prove the degradation to which our system has reduced the population than this profanity. No upper class, and consequently no refinement, now remains, and the priesthood, instead of being high bred and intellectual Brahmans, must be sunk into a state of debasement from which nothing can now probably redeem them. Assuming, however, for the nonce, that this painting never had been perpetrated, still the art displayed here would be very inferior to that of such a temple as, for instance, Hullabîd, in the Mysore, to be described further on. The perimeter, however, of that temple is only 700 ft.; here we have corridors extending to 4000 ft., carved on both sides, and in the hardest granite. It is the immensity of the labour here displayed that impresses us, much more than its quality, and that, combined with a certain picturesqueness and mystery, does produce an effect which is not surpassed by any other temple in India, and by very few elsewhere.