The foliage, as may be supposed, where perennial heat and moisture occur in abundance, spread overhead in such extraordinary luxuriance that few of the sun's rays could penetrate the massy net-work of leaves and branches forming the roof of our fairy passage.

Not a single bird could be seen, either seated or on the wing; nor was even a chirp distinguishable above the dreamy hum of millions of mosquitoes floating about, in a calm so profound, that it seemed as if the surface of the water had never been disturbed since the Creation.

The air, though cool, felt so heavy and choky, that, by the time we had scrambled to the end of this strange tunnel or watery lane, we could scarcely breathe, and were rejoiced to enter the open air again,--although, when we came out, the sun "flamed in the forehead of the morning sky," and beat fiercely and hotly upon the parched ground, from which every blade of grass had been scorched away.
The village of Tamblegam, to which we soon came, is inhabited by a colony of Hindoo emigrants from the coast of Malabar.

It is a neat little place, of which the huts, formed chiefly of branches of the tamarind-tree and leaves of the plantain, standing under prodigiously high cocoa-nuts, are so very diminutive, that the whole looks more like a child's toy-box village than the residence of grown people.

The principal edifice is a pagoda built of stone, exactly ten feet square.
Not fancying there could be any harm in taking such a liberty, we entered the pagoda unceremoniously, and one of our artists set to work sketching the bronze image which the natives worship as a deity, a figure not quite three inches in height; but the Hindoos were shocked at our impiety, and soon ousted the Admiral and his party.