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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
nothing yet precisely known as to the monuments, and indeed the late M. Garnier doubted their existence. There are also said to be many Musalman structures, such as minarets and tombs, with Arabic inscriptions.
The district of Champa, or Binh-Thuân, is one of those especially productive of eagle-wood or aloes-wood; and the Teanfi, or aloes-wood of Champa, was one of the kinds in high repute with the old Arabs. The native name is Kinam. Ebony is also abundant.
Mediaeval Notices.-Both these products are mentioned by Marco Polo, who visited Champa as a commissioner from Kublai Khân about 1285. It was also visited forty years later by the Franciscan Odoric of Pordenone. Both travellers notice as prominent facts the immense family of the king, and the great number of domestic elephants that were kept. Both circumstances are still characteristic of most of the Indo-Chinese states. (Garnier, Voyage d'Exploration; Crawfurd, Mission to Siam, &c., and other works; Bastian, Reise, I. and IV.; Mouhot's Travels; De Mailla, H. Gen. de la Chine, tom. XII.; Bishop Louis in Jour. As. Soc. Beng., vols. VII. and VIII.; Tableau de la Cochin-Chine, &c. &c.) H. Y.*
BIJAPUR.
The admirers of Saracenic architecture will be glad to hear that the glories of Bijapur are probably not doomed to extinction. A project for making the city the head-quarters of the present Kaladgi collectorate is in favour with the authorities, and will, it may be hoped, be carried out within a few years. Many of the old civil buildings, ruined more by Marâṭhâ savagery than by time, will be repaired and re-inhabited; and the preservation of the great monuments will pass from the hands of the municipality into those of a competent scientific officer.
The local officers are all enthusiastic for the preservation of their splendid buildings; and if any one should object to the re-occupation of the Adil Shahi palaces, it may well be answered that no government can afford to keep up as a mere ouriosity the remains of so large a city. The Arkilla, or citadel, is already being cleared out; and the excavations have already revealed a number of beautiful Hindu or Jaina pillars with inscriptions, which are being carefully protected, and when read will probably contribute a good deal to the history of the pre-Muhammadan period in Karnâța. At present, however, plague, pestilence, and famine render the city of Bijapur no place for
Written by Col. Yule for the Encyclopædia Britan nica, but omitted from it, and printed in the Geog. Magazine, March 1877, vol. IV. pp. 66-7.
[AUGUST, 1877.
amateurs or idlers, and leave very little time for research at the disposal of the handful of local officers who dwell among the tombs, like Scriptural lunatics, and find it quite enough for them to attend to the living.
W. F. S.
KURUBHARS AND DOLMENS.
In the Kaladgi district the Shepherd caste are called Kurubhars. They bury their dead, and the other day I came across the tomb of one only four years old. It was a complete miniature dolmen about eighteen inches every way, composed of four stones, one at each side, one at the rear, and a capstone. The interior was occupied by two round stones about the size of a man's fist, painted red, the deceased reposing in his mother-earth below. No ancient dolmens are known in this
(northern) part of the district, though they are, I believe, not uncommon in the talukâs on the Krishna river.
What is the meaning and derivation of K ur ubhar, and is it the same word as Kuramba, the name of a Nilgiri hill-tribe ?+ The latter, I believe, is a race of dwarfs; the Shepherds here are a fine breed of men; yet the difference can hardly be greater than that which exists among the Bhills.
In his Rude Stone Monuments (p. 476) Mr. Fergusson hazards a conjecture that the Kurambâs of the southern hills are the remnant of a great and widely spread race, who may have erected dolmens; and the fact now noted seems to point in the same direction.
W. F. S.
NOTES ON THE MUHARRAM FESTIVAL. In connection with my Notes in the Indian Antiquary, vol. VI. page 79, a friend sends me the following:
"I think that you may be interested to hear that all the practices you mention are followed here (Kolhapur). That peculiar one of piercing the ears in front of the tabut is in vogue here. It is also common for Marathâs, even of the highest families, such as the Chief of Mudhol, to bind a thread of coloured worsted round their arms and call themselves Fakirs for that day. They also declare that people jump into the burning pit and come out unscathed, but this I have not seen and will not swear to. You don't mention the institution of the Nalt Saheb, a horse-shoe or crescent on the top of a pole; have you not noticed it? Here the Nål Saheb is paraded about with music and
Ind. Ant. vol. II. pp. 32, 108, 276; vol. III. pp. 95-6. The Nal is the shoe and representative of "Husain's charger, Zu'l Janna.-W. F. S.
