M. Tavernier, on his entering one of the great pagodas, observed an idol in the centre of the building, sitting cross-legged in the Indian fashion, upon whose head was placed _une triple couronne_; and from this triple crown four horns extended themselves, the symbol of the rays of glory, denoting the Deity to whom the four quarters of the world were under subjection. According to the same author, in his account of the Benares pagoda, the deity of India is saluted by prostrating the body three times, and he is not only adorned with a triple crown, and worshipped by a triple salutation, but he bears in his hand a three-forked sceptre, exhibiting the exact model of the trident of the Greek Neptune. Now here we must allude to some very remarkable discoveries respecting the Trident of Neptune and the use of a similar symbol of authority by the Indian gods. Mr. Maurice points out that the unsatisfactory reasons given by mythologists for the assignment of the trident to the Grecian deity, exhibit very clear evidence of its being a symbol that was borrowed from some more ancient mythology, and did not naturally, or originally belong to Neptune. Its three points, or _tines_, some of them affirm to signify the different qualities of the three sorts of waters that are upon the earth, as the waters of the ocean, which are salt; the water of fountains, which is sweet; and the water of lakes and ponds, which, in a degree, partakes of the nature of both. Others, again, insist that this three-pronged sceptre alludes to Neptune's threefold power over the sea, viz., to _agitate_, to _assuage_, and to _preserve_. These reasons are, all of them, in his estimation, mighty frivolous, and amount to a confession of their total ignorance of its real meaning.