mentioned by the Jesuit father (Bouchet) who visited Trichinopoly in the sixteenth century, and the eighteen towers where grain and ammunition were stored, have vanished. Nothing remains but the mainguard gateway , a portion of the wall on the west, and Dalton's bastion on the north, which have been preserved as a memorial of British valour under Clive, Stringer Lawrence, Dalton, and other officers.
The house in which Clive lived was to be seen in 1879 when I arrived. It had once been a chuttram or native rest-house. The front was adorned with handsome carved stone pillars, on which were the figures of prancing horses, similar, but on a smaller scale, to the pillars in the temple of Srirungam. It stood facing the west in front of the tank at the corner. Since then it has been built over and absorbed into the Jesuit College.
The rock itself is unchanged. The street that runs-round its base is intact. The only access is by stairs cut in the living stone. The temple elephant swings slowly up the steps every day bringing water from the sacred Cauvery for use in the service of the idol. Right and left of the stairs higher up are halls and chambers belonging to the rock temple. At the top of the stairs is a room cut out of the rock. It was formerly used as an arsenal, but is now furnished with a shrine before which lamps burn. When I paid my first visit to the rock the attendant did not trouble to come forward and open the door, but in these days when globe-trotters abound he, with two or three companions, is very much in evidence. Offerings are asked for, and in return the sightseers are allowed to gaze through the open doorway into the murky atmosphere of the windowless hall. They may also enjoy, as I did, the real smell of a heathen temple, wherein the stale smoke from burning incense and the odour of bats and rancid oil are mingled.
