Deep in the glen, sloping down to the stream, amid picturesque and romantic surroundings, stood the old temple of Kalee Durga; and running along, like a huge, jagged shadow, dark even in the brightest sunlight, rose the roofs of the monastic dwellings of the Brahmin ascetics, from which the place is named. I alighted, and told my syce to wait outside for me; but he, being a pious Hindoo, bestrode the pony and rode off, to return in a quarter of an hour with oil and fresh flowers and sweetmeats enough to propitiate a great many dark goddesses. There was not a soul to be seen anywhere, whether of Brahmanic or Buddhistic faith. So I followed my syce into the temple, and while he prostrated himself at full length before each one of his gods, I took out my note-book and occupied myself in making sketches and memoranda of the strange scene before me. Vishnu, Siva, Krishna, and the goddess Kalee, were the chief deities of the place, and figured as the heroes and heroines among the numerous grotesque and monstrous myths sculptured on the walls. Here was Vishnu lying comfortably on the thousand-headed snake Shesha, or sporting as a fish, or crawling as a tortoise, or showing his fangs as a wild boar, or shaking his head in his last and fifth _avatar_ as a dwarf, all admirably executed. Here too was Krishna, like another Apollo, whipped out of heaven for playing tricks on the lovely shepherdesses of Muttra, whose tender hearts he stole away, and whose butter he found so tempting that he perpetually ran off with it in secret, and whose jars of milk it was this madcap's pleasure roguishly to upset. In another compartment, crumbling with age, he is seen again in his last mad prank, perched on a stony tree with the milkmaids' stony habiliments under his arm, and an unmistakable grin on his stony, greasy[35] face, while the owners of the dresses are standing below in various attitudes of bashfulness imploring their restoration. Before them in different places stands the Lingam. Here was also a beautiful sculpture of Siva and his wife Parvati, with the sacred bull Nandi lying at their feet, and Kalee in combat with the monster Mahashasura; and close by again she is seen caressing a Nylghau,[36] that is looking up to her. The figures of the goddesses are wonderfully spirited, and of exquisite symmetry, conveying the idea of perfect and beautiful womanhood. And yet Kalee is represented elsewhere in the same temple as a black and terrible being, covered with symbols of the most ferocious cruelty.