2-982-322 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches in India - Trichinopoly Rock, 1858. 'The fort walls, on one side within musket range of the Cauvery, opposite to the celebrated Isle Sri Rangam, are of various heights, from twenty to thirty feet, their circumference being about six miles, with a native pettah or city inclosed. Within them also are the arsenal, commissariat, ordnance and medical stores, pay-office, garrison hospital, and gaol. Our View represents that portion of the rock which was originally used as a quarry, the sienite of which it is composed being hewn out into pillars and spacious staircases, which give an easy access to the summit, where there is a vimera held in deep reverence by Brahminists...The flights of steps, about halfway up, pass the site of an old powder-magazine, accidentally exploded in 1772; and, leading to the summit, the spectator, being 600 feet above the alluvial soil, has a most extensive view of distant mountains; the meanderings of the Cauvery, and its tributary, the Coleroon; with the celebrated temples of Sri Rangam on one side, and the cantonments, racecourse...on the other, with large irrigated fields numerously encroaching upon the surrounding plains'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.