of the caves The Island of Salsette, or Shatshashthi, at the head of Bombay harbour, is peculiarly rich in rock-Temples, there being works of this kind at Kanheri, Marol, Mahakali Caves, Magathane, Mandapeshwar Caves, and Jogeshwari Caves. The most extensive series is the group of Buddhist caves at Kanheri, a few miles from Thane, in which are about 109 separate caves, mostly small, however, and architecturally unimportant. From their position, within easy access from Bombay and Bassein, they early attracted attention, and were described by Portuguese visitors in the 16th century, and by European voyagers and travellers like Linschoten, Fryer, Gemelli Careri, Anquetil Du Perron, Salt and others. They are about six miles from Thana, and two miles north of the Tulsi lake, recently formed to increase the water supply of Bombay, and are excavated in one large bubble of a hill, situated in the midst of an immense tract of forest country. Most of the hills in the neighbourhood are covered with the jungle, but this one is nearly bare, its summit being formed by one large rounded mass of compact rock, under which a softer stratum has in many places been washed out by the rains, forming natural caves; it is in the stratum again below this that most of the excavations are situated. The rock in which the caves are is a volcanic breccia, which forms the whole of the hilly district of the island, culminating to the north of the caves in a point about 1,550 feet above the sea level. In so large a group there must be considerable differences in the ages of some of the excavations. These, however, may generally be at least approximatively ascertained from the characters of the numerous inscriptions that exist upon them. Architectural features are necessarily indefinite where the great majority of the excavations consist of a single small room, usually with a little veranda in front, supported by two plain square or octagonal shafts, and stone-beds in the cells. In the larger and more ornate caves they are, of course, as important here as elsewhere. Their style is certainly primitive, and some of these monks' abodes may date from before the Christian era. One small cave of this type (No. 81) in the ravine, consisting of a very narrow porch, without pillars, a room with a stone bench along the walls, and a cell to the left, has