scrutinise the strange symbolical figures of the twenty-fourth cave and the
stories of the chaste and unchaste wives which are hewn in the ornamental
gateway of the third.

From the terrace in front of the caves a fine panorama greets the eye.
Below commences the wide plain which creeps northwards to the rugged hills
comprising the weird couch-shaped summit of Ramsej and the solitary cone
of the Chambhar Hill, embosoming the great Jain caves of the 12th century.
Beyond the Chambhar cone climb heavenwards the castellated pinnacles of the
Chandor range, mist-shrouded in this monsoon season. In the nearer distance
the primeval Brahman settlement of Govardhan sleeps amid her mango-groves,
and opposite to it the modern Christian village of Sharanpur marks the
threshold of that tract of fair woodland and fairer garden which is Nasik's
pride. Here and there a red roof catches the sun's rays and shews a splash
of orange amid the green; but save for this the picture has but two tints,
the warm green of the plain country in the foreground and the grey of the
mighty mountain-range which stands sentinel behind it. Your feet rest upon
soil hallowed by the memories of two thousand years, upon ground which
bears the sign-manual of early and late Buddhist, of Jain and lastly of
Maratha, who used the hill as a muster-ground of warriors and bored holes
in the graven images for the tethering of his cattle and steeds. By some
divine decree "the imperial banditti" kept their impious hands from the
famous inscriptions which are the real glory of these caves and form the
connecting-link between ourselves and that great king whose face was "as
the sun-kissed lotus, whose army drank the waters of three oceans," Shri
Gautamiputra the Satakarni.

And so ends our morning's exploration. One last visit to the silent keepers
of these messages from dead monarchs--and we pass down to the high road,
whence we look back once more upon Trirashmi, the casket of jewels without