From _Puduceri_ I continued my journey by _Calapada_, _Congimaram_, and _Carpuncolam_, where I passed the night in one of the before-mentioned _Balams_. Towards evening I was visited by some female Indians, each of whom carried a basket filled with garlands of white flowers, which they hung around the neck of _Gannesha_. Next morning, at sun-rise, some Brahmans brought a copper vessel with coco-nut oil; poured it over the statue of _Gannesha_, and at the same time muttered a certain form of prayer in the Samscred language. As one of them spoke a little Portuguese, I entered into conversation with him. Near such a _Balam_, or inn, there is generally a pond, called in the Tamulic language _Colam_, and in corrupted Portuguese _Tanque_. To this _Colam_ all the Indians who live in the neighbourhood hasten as soon as they get up in the morning, and men and women, boys and girls, placing themselves close to each other, wash the parts of nature with the utmost dexterity, and repeat certain prayers. This ablution, which is renewed every morning, has been introduced into India in the earliest periods, and is a general practice among the inhabitants of the country, as they are of opinion that purity of soul cannot exist without personal cleanliness[49]. The excessive heat of the sun, and the continual perspiration thereby occasioned, may have first given rise to this custom, as also to the worshipping of the _Lingam_, which, among the Indians, in the same manner as Priapus among the Romans, supplies the place of a god. That the parts of generation might remain in a sound state, the Indian philosophers commanded cleanliness by means of water; and that this practice might never fall into disuse, they ordered that divine honour even should be paid to these parts, which represent the creative power of the sun, moon, and elements. An Indian book, entitled _Lingapurànam_, a copy of which was preserved in the king’s library at Paris, is a treatise on the worship of this deity. The Indian philosophers, by whom it was first introduced, gave as the inventor of it one of their gods named _Mahadeva_, or _Shiva_, the symbol of the all-creating sun.