Plate thirty-nine from the first volume of James Forbes'"Oriental Memoirs". Forbes(1749-1819)arrived in Bombay in 1766 and spent eighteen years of life in Western India. During his residence there he frequently visited the excavations at Kanheri and Elephanta. On one occasion he stayed at Elephanta for four days, 'sketching the most striking features ...of the wonderful works'. Forbes drew the column topped by elephants and 'something like a bell' in the large Temple on the former island of Salsette. The other was from a Hindu rock-cut cave-temple at Elephanta, an island near Bombay, named after a stone elephant found there by the Portuguese. He remarked, 'its capital seems well adapted to the situation, giving the spectator an idea of its being pressed and swelled by supporting the superincumbent mountain.'
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