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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1874.
excited much perplexity and speculation as to their use or intention. They are almost invariably found in the larger Indian kistvaens, and are shown in drawings by Col. Meadows Taylor in the Jour. Bomb.Br. R.As. Soc. for January 1853,* and also occur in European dolmens. Sometimes round and only large enough to admit an arm, sometimes oblong and big enough for a child to pass through, they have remained a puzzle to antiquaries, and have suggested to the natives the myth that the tombs were the habitations of the pigmy race, to which the holes served as doors. In a paper by myself on the Megalithic Monuments of Koimbatur, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (vol. VII. at p. 25), the subject has been discussed, and the suggestion thrown out that supposing the graves were family sepulchres, used by successive generations, as the numbers of vessels containing bones, &c., in them might seem to betoken, the apertures may have been intended as means for introducing fresh sepulchral urns when occasion required. No other conjecture seemed plansible, but a new idea has lately suggested itself. Some remarkable discoveries have recently been made in Egypt. Great cemeteries of what may be supposed to have been the well-to-do middle classes have been laid open, a principal feature of which are sub- terranean or excavated closed sepulchral cham-
bers or tomb-closets, closely built and blocked up, except one small aperture, the use of which seemed very problematical till some paintings were observed in the chambers themselves, representing the tombs and apertures, into which persons were blowing incense through long tubes. The inscriptions and paintings left no doubt of this, and it was plain that one of the regular ceremonial rites of that great dead-reverencing and tomb-building race was, at stated times, to offer incense to the dead in their solidly-built and closely-shut chambers through an aperture left for the purpose. The idea immediately arises whether the mysterious holes so carefully pierced in the massive slabs of pre-historic dolmens may not have had a similar use and purpose. The ancient Egyptians were of the tomb-building Taranian race, and these lately-explored cemeteries, which are at least 4000 years old, may contain traces of the survival amongst them of still more primæval and pre-historic customs. Evidence for the enormous antiquity of communication between Egypt and Southern India continually grows stronger, and the forests of the latter country abound with fragrant gums, notably the ancient Olibanum, which to-day are principally gathered by the wild jangle tribes, who are looked upon, with much probability, as the descendants of the pre-historic cairn-building peoples.
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE TOWN OF GOGHÂ.
BY MAJOR J. W. WATSON, ABSIST. POL. AGENT, JHÅLÅWÅR. The bandar of Goghê was in ancient times in a great portion of Gujarat, such as the towns one of the ports of Gundigadh, which was during of Surat, Bharoch, Bhảonagar, etc. a very comthe reign of the Gehlot dynasty of Valabhî a place mon lullaby to a fractions child is a rar of some importance. Goghå, a few miles from TNT 24,"Sleep, sleep, baby : the Goghars Gundigadh, is said to have derived its name have come." After the fall of Valabhi, and the from Goghlâ aet, a shell commonly found on rise of the kingdom of Anbalwara Patan, the the sea-coast of Saurashtra; and this does not port of Goghå rose into notice, and an entire appear an unlikely derivation, as the name quarter was allotted to the Goghars in the city Goghlâ is not uncommon, and is always as- of Patan, and the men of Goghå were so famed sociated with bandars : thus there is a Goghlâ for their prowess that from this sprung the near Delwara, and another near Dholera. Gogh saying, well known throughout Gujarat, jari soon became famous for its hardy seamen, called & T A , "Bride of Lanka, and brideGoghars and Goghåris (as were the Gohels at groom of Gogba." After the rise of the a later date). At this time the whole of the coast Gujarat monarchy founded by Muzafar Shah, population were daring pirates, and the Goghars Goghå became one of the ports of the were second to none. Even at the present day, Gujarât kingdom. Goghå had previously fallen
• See, too, Fergusson's Rude Stone Monuments, pp. Rude Stone Monuments, p. 844. 469, 473.
1 Tod's W. India, p. 850.
