souls and bodies. Evidences of the holy character of the town met
us everywhere as we strolled back to our lodgings. Sacred monkeys,
painted red over their hind quarters in consecration to the monkey-god
Hanuman, capered and grinned about us, and sacred bulls obstructed
our way along the narrow and dirty streets, while everywhere we saw
pictures representing Krishna--sometimes much like an Apollo in the
guise of a youthful shepherd playing the flute to a group of young
girls, who danced under a tree; sometimes as a Hercules strangling a
serpent or performing other feats of physical strength.

Fabulous stories are told of the early wealth and glory of Mattra.
Ferishta relates that when Mahmoud of Ghazni had arrived with his
troops in the neighborhood in the year 1017, he heard of this rich
city consecrated to Krishna Vasu-Deva, and straightway marching upon
it captured it and gave it up to plunder. Writing of it afterward to
the governor of Ghazni, he declared that such another city could not
be built within two centuries; that it contained one thousand edifices
"as firm as the faith of the faithful," and mostly built of marble;
that among the temples had been found five golden idols in whose heads
were ruby eyes worth fifty thousand dinars; that in another was a
sapphire weighing four hundred _miskals_ (the present _miskal_ of
Bosrah is seventy-two grains), the image itself producing, after being
melted, ninety-eight thousand three hundred _miskals_ of pure gold;
and that besides these there were captured one hundred silver idols,
each of which was a camel's load.

We spent a pleasant morning in wandering about the old ruined
fort which was built here by Jey Singh (or Jaya Sinha), the famous
astronomer, and we were particularly attracted, each in his own
contemplative and quiet way, by the ruins of an observatory which we