He told us many stories, as wonderful as they were false: amongst the rest, the following:--That some of his holy sect (Brahmins) had, a short period before, attempted to explore this passage; but, when they had proceeded about half way, some of them died. The others consulted whether it was more prudent to proceed to the accomplishment of their design, or at once return, while it was certain that their oil and provisions would last them. They agreed to return, and they reached the spot from which they had first started, after an absence of some months. The hoary-headed mendicant told this barefaced falsehood with all the solemnity of truth, and confirmed it by emphatically calling on his Maker to witness his assertion. We did not think it prudent to dispute his word till we were fairly out of his clutches; but, just as we were about to take our departure, I told him that what he had asserted was nothing but a delusion to exact money from the English traveller, and that we could plainly see, from the nature of the passage, that it was a secret inlet to the great palace, for some dark and murderous purpose. This he denied with all the effrontery of which these people are capable, and we parted on no very friendly terms. This same old fellow accounted for the earthquake having visited the city of Ougein in the following happy manner. He said that a white man had sojourned there some three or four years, subsisting on the gifts of the benevolent. "He spoke fluently all the Oriental tongues, was affable, and became generally esteemed. Having accumulated some money, he built a little temple, and, in two or three years, gained a considerable number of converts to his religion, and became so powerful in his arguments, and so persuasive in his discourses, that the Brahmin priests held a consultation. The result of this meeting was never published, for it was on that day--that long-to-be-remembered day--that the great visitation overtook this city, engulfing myriads of its inhabitants. This was a mark of their god's displeasure for permitting this ancient city to be defiled by the erection of a Christian temple. The temple was wholly swallowed up; but, Sir, strange to say, some one short minute before this, the white man had gone to a small school in a distant village, and escaped the catastrophe. On the same eve, however, he disappeared, and naught has been heard of him since that day--a day registered in blood in the annals of this ancient city."