The temple dedicated to Parswanath, the great Jain teacher and saint, is an exquisite bit of architecture built of the purest white marble. From one of the vaulted roofs is suspended a cluster of flowers resembling the half-blown lotus, sculptured out of the rock; its cup and petals are so beautifully carved that they are almost as delicate and transparent as the flower itself. Everywhere the flowers, fruits, birds, and animals indicate that the artists must have taken their models from nature. There is also a fine Rajpoot fortress here. The dog-rose, a beautiful Indian flower called _seotee_, the pomegranate, the wild grape, the apricot, are among the indigenous products of Mount Aboo. The mango tree also abounds here, the white and yellow jessamine, the balsam, and the golden champa, which is sacred to the gods; but the rarest and most beautiful of all the plants is a parasite called by the natives _ambathri_, with lovely blue and white flowers, creeping, entwining, and blossoming around the largest forest trees. It was a beautiful morning on which we returned to Andara. It was not without deep regret that we bade adieu to this charming mountain-region and the Jain temples enshrined within its heart. We turned again and again to take a last look at the bas-reliefs and the ornaments wrought here with such grace and delicacy of design as to become the despair of our more impetuous artists, before we could make up our minds to quit those extraordinarily beautiful monuments for ever. [Illustration: NATIVE PASSENGER BOAT ON THE HOOGLY.] FOOTNOTE: [85] A native name for a tree which is found in great abundance in this part of India, and held very sacred. CHAPTER XIV. Calcutta, the City of the Black Venus, Kali.--The River Hoogley.--Cremation-Towers.--Chowringee, the Fashionable Suburb of Calcutta.--The Black Hole.--Battles of Plassey and Assaye.--The Brahmo-Somaj.--Temple of Kali.--Feast of Juggurnath.--Benares and the Taj Mahal. After eight or nine days' steaming from the fair and picturesque island of Bombay our captain announced that we were about to enter the Hoogley, a river made famous in Indian song and story as "the strong arm of the beautiful goddess Gunga, the compassionate daughter of the proud Himâlayas," but which is in reality a great muddy estuary. The burning sun poured down upon its heavy waters as they loomed out of the distant plain and rolled sluggishly toward the sea, every wave seeming to bear on its troubled brow an impress of the dark history of the land through which it has flowed for centuries.