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 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ^ -^ 
 
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 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON. 
 
 ' Since E.merson-Tennent's monumextal volumes, no description of the country 
 so full, accurate, well-illustrated, or entertaining has been published..' 
 
 Daily Chronicle. 
 
 ' It will certainly become the classical work on Ceylon.' — Black and White. 
 
 ' Miss Gordon Cumming's is by far the most valuable account of Ceylon that we have read 
 for many years. She has travelled over most of the " Isle of Flowers," and knows every kind of 
 life, animal and vegetable, that flourishes in that wonderful garden of vivid greenery. ... It is 
 thoroughly interesting.' — St. James's Gazette. 
 
 ' It is always pleasant to meet with a new work by Miss Gordon Gumming. Her pages are 
 no less valuable for the information they embody than they are conspicuous for their literary 
 merit. To her keen powers of observation and description she brings the incomparable ad- 
 vantage of a cultured mind and a widely extended knowledge, and she is, in addition, a clever 
 and painstaking artist. A fund of entertainment will be found in this volume. It is bright and 
 pleasant reading, and is pervaded by a sense of thorough enjoyment which fully justifies the title 
 of a clever and very welcome book.' — Spectator. 
 
 ' Such a name as the " Ceylonese Encylopredia " would befit it well." Nobody can read 
 a chapter without feeling that he has been learning something he is glad to know, and that 
 he would despair of finding in any other book. The minute peculiarities of the island life, 
 in costume, monuments, house-building and furnishing, festivals, pilgrimages, have never been 
 caught by a more far-seeing eye, or set forth in more apt words. On the whole, this tome will 
 long be a standard work on Ceylon. These points, and many more, to be appreciated must be 
 read as portrayed with feminine grace and masculine vigour by the wide-wandering authoress.' 
 
 Nation. 
 
 'These volumes contain all that any traveller can wish to know of its history, the life of the 
 people, the temples, the worship, the animals, and the botany of that delightful island. Exhaus- 
 tive and authoritative, full and faithful, are the adjectives necessary to describe the methods in 
 which Miss Gordon Gumming has dealt with the interesting subject of her book. We have read 
 no better book on Ceylon.' — Academy. 
 
 ' !Miss Gordon Gumming is at once an artist, a naturalist, a keen observer, and a writer of 
 rare skill and grace ; and wherever she has wandered she has carried the habits and faculties of 
 a trained intelligence, full of knowledge and resource. . . . .She visited Ceylon under the most 
 favourable auspices, and nothing has escaped her attention.' — Daily News. 
 
 ' Quite one of the most vivid and accurate books of travel which we have recently en- 
 countered. ... In no case, so far as we are aware, has so exact and pleasing a picture been 
 drawn as that which is contained in these pages.' — Standard. 
 
 ' In every respect a charming book. Whosoever wishes to know all about that earthly . 
 paradise, Ceylon, should hasten to peruse the delightful volume written and illustrated by Miss 
 Gumming.' — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 ' Miss Gordon Gumming has written nothing more delightful than this volume . . . Many 
 books have been written to celebrate the beauties of Ceylon ; but, so far as our knowledge goes, 
 no traveller has described them with the force and eloquence that we find in jNIiss Cumming's 
 volume.' — Anti-Jacobin. 
 
 'A series of pleasant and vivid pictures of the beautiful island, and of the occupations and 
 industries of the people, copiously interspersed with notices of their history, religion, folk-lore, and 
 the like.' — Athen-eum. 
 
 'Her book is one of the best on the subject, forgiving both a good general idea of what 
 Ceylon is like and a great amount of detailed information.' — Scotsman. 
 
 ' She gives an admirable picture of life on the island, gained from her journeys throughout the 
 length and breadth of it.' — Graphic. 
 
 'The narrative is as brilliant as any of Miss Cumming's well-known volumes, and the 
 illustrations from the author's pencil are excellent.'— Observer.
 
 2 Opinions of tJic Press. 
 
 ' INliss Gordon Cummiiig is an indefatigable and a delightful maker of books of travel. . . . 
 This work is as faithful and complete as the writer's books always are. It is admirably done, 
 and is extremely interesting.'— Glasgow Herald. 
 
 'It is impossible to read the book without both pleasure and profit.'— Manchester 
 
 GUARUI.VN. 
 
 'The volume forms a valuable handbook to those who desire to follow Miss Gordon 
 Cumming's example, and spend a few months in so beautiful a climate.'— Queen. 
 
 ' The work is as delightful as any of the author's previous works— and that is saying a good 
 deal.'— North British Daily Mail. 
 
 ' It would be difficult to name a more delightful work of travel than this. The subject is- 
 sunny.' — Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 ' The present work has all that grace of style and extent of observation which characterise 
 every page that comes from Miss Gordon Cumming's pen.'— Newcastle Chronicle. 
 
 'The book is admirably written, and its value is greatly enhanced by numerous excellent 
 illustrations.' — Field. 
 
 ' We welcome Miss Gordon Cumming's valuable contribution to the literature of Greater 
 Britain. . . . An interesting account, charmingly written.'— Colonies and India. 
 
 'The handsome volume is a complete cyclopaedia of the island in its every aspect ; and her 
 word-pictures are to the fuH as correct in execution as her paintings. . . . It is at once instinct 
 with beauty of description and'crammed full of information.'— European Mail. 
 
 ' A verj- pleasant record of travel, adventure, and experience.'— Times. 
 
 ' Some of the sunshine of the sunny land about which she writes seems to linger on the 
 pages of Miss Gordon Cumming's goodly volume. There is a pervading sense of joy and bright- 
 ness which irresistibly communicates itself to the reader.'— Birmingham Mercury. 
 
 ' A charming book. Miss Gordon Gumming seems to have put forth all her powers to give 
 an adequate description of one of the most beautiful places on the face of the earth. . . . Reading 
 the book is like entering a tropical forest in all its splendour.'— Aberdeen Journal. 
 
 'The book is full of interesting narrative.'— Manchester Guardian. 
 
 ' It may be doubted whether the present book is not even more interesting than its predecessors : 
 it is certainly not less interesting ; and the rare faculty possessed by the writer of thoroughly enjoy- 
 ing what she sees, and of admirably describing what she enjoys, has seldom, if ever, been exhibited 
 to greater advantage than in the goodly volume before us.' — John Bull. 
 
 'We have no more fascinating writer than the lady who made so many friends by her former 
 books. Miss Gordon Gumming has made herself mistress of the art of descriptive writing. She 
 is an acute observer of men and things.'— Leeds Mercury. 
 
 ' Altogether, this is one of Miss Gordon Cumming's best works, and may safely be recommended 
 to lovers of travel-literature,' — Globe. 
 
 ' A book to be read without' delay. . . . Miss Gordon Gumming continues to' keep the reader 
 charmed at every step.' — Methodist Recorder. 
 
 ' To all who contemplate the journey to Ceylon, we should recommend a previous study of this 
 work. It will teach them what to see, and how to see it, much better than any ordinary guide- 
 book.'— Church Times. 
 
 ' It is not every life that can put on record two consecutive years of unalloyed happiness like 
 those which appear to have fallen to the lot of the author of this pleasant volume. . . . Miss 
 Gordon Gumming has much that is exceedingly interesting to say, and her statements have unusual 
 weight from the fact that for a considerable portion of the two years she was residing with the 
 Bishop of Colombo, and was afterwards the guest of important Government officials.'— Guardian. 
 
 ' Miss Gordon Cumming's book is full of the cheerful buoyancy of a pleasure excursion 
 without drawbacks or danger. ... It is a book which ought to make the reader believe himself 
 transported to for a brilliant hour or two the lovely woods and sunny verdure of Ceylon.' 
 
 Blackwood's INIagazine.
 
 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON
 
 CEYLON 
 
 ' And we came to the Isle of Flowers ; 
 
 Their breath met us out on the seas, 
 For the Spring and the Middle Summer 
 
 Sat each on the lap of the breeze ; 
 
 And the red passion-flower to the cliffs, 
 And the dark-blue clematis, clung ; 
 
 And, starred with myriad blossoms. 
 The long convolvulus hung.'
 
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 TWO HAPPY YEARS 
 IN CEYLON 
 
 BY 
 
 C. F. GORDON GUMMING 
 
 author of 
 
 'at home in Fiji' 'a lady's cruise in a french man-of-war' 
 
 'in the Hebrides' 'in the Himalayas and on the indian plains' 
 
 ' via CORNWALL TO EGVl'T ' ETC.^ 
 
 A NEW EDITION 
 WITH 2S ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR, AND A MAP 
 
 LONDON 
 
 C H A T T O & W I N D U S 
 
 1901
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 LONDON
 
 PREFACE 
 
 What can be the reason that writers on Ceylon seem impelled 
 to describe their book as a term of years ? — 
 
 ' Fifty Years in Ceylon.' An Autobiography by Major 
 Thomas Skinner. 
 
 ' Eleven Years in Ceylon.' By Major Forbes, 78th High- 
 landers. 
 
 ' Eight Years in Ceylon,' By Sir Samuel Baker. 
 
 ' Seven Years in Ceylon.' By Mary and Margaret 
 Leitch, — 
 and finally, ' Two Happy Years in Ceylon,' by C. F. Gordon 
 Cumming, who had so named her notes of pleasant days in 
 the fair Isle, before realising that any of her predecessors had 
 thus described their longer terms of residence therein .'' 
 
 I can only ascribe it to the fact, so evident in each of 
 these woiks, that the several writers have retained such 
 sweet memories of 
 
 ' Afoonlit seas, 
 Of dreamy sunsets, and of balmy air, 
 Of glowing landscapes and of shadowy bowers 
 Where stately palms low murmur in the breeze,' — 
 
 that they have loved to enumerate the months and years that 
 glided by amid such pleasant influences.
 
 vi TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Although, by comparison with that of others, my own 
 term in the Earthl}' Paradise was short, I can safely say 
 that, as it was all play and no work, I had abundant leisure 
 to note many matters of interest seen under exceptionally 
 favourable circumstances. 
 
 I trust, therefore, that these pages may prove of some 
 value to the ever-increasing army of wanderers in search of 
 winter-quarters.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Introductory . i 
 
 I. My First Glimpse of the Tropics 12 
 
 II. Colombo 25 
 
 III. Colombo 52 
 
 IV. The Cruise of the Castle JeRxMyn 73 
 
 V. The Cruise of the Castle Jermyn 89 
 
 VI. To the Hills 108 
 
 VII. Nuwara Eliya 132 
 
 VIII. Elephants 154 
 
 IX. Kandy 172 
 
 X. The Worshipful Tooth 196 
 
 XI. From Kandy to Anuradhapura 238 
 
 XII. Anuradhapura 266 
 
 XIII. Anuradhapura and Mihintale 295 
 
 XIV. Ratnapura — Gems 310 
 
 XV. Badulla and Haputale 325 
 
 XVI. Some Pages from a Brother's Diary .... 348 
 
 XVII. Batticaloa 362 
 
 XVIII. Pollanarua 383 
 
 XIX. Trincomalee— Saami Rock 406 
 
 XX, Trincomalee to Galle 422
 
 viii TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 CllAlTEK I'AGE 
 
 XXI. Sou'iHEKN Coast 442 
 
 XXII. Return to Coi.OMiio 466 
 
 XXIII. Nati\i-: Police 477 
 
 XXIV. I\ THE Planting Districts 497 
 
 XX\'. Ascent of Adam's Peak 523 
 
 XXVI. The Tug of War — The Battle of Diverse Creeds in 
 
 Cevlon 548 
 
 XX\TI. Christian Work in Ceylon 579 
 
 INDEX 609
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Shrine on the Summit of Adam's Peak, and the 
 
 Shadow of the Peak . Fiontispiece 
 
 Map of Ceylon to face page i 
 
 Blossom of the Cocoa Palm ,, 6i 
 
 Our House-boat on the Luna-Oya ,, 102 
 
 Valley OF THE Maha-velli Ganga ,, 128 
 
 Showing the Railway and Satinwood Bridges at Peradeni)a, 
 Allegalla Peak, terraced rice-fields ; foreground, coffee and 
 a Talipot palm 
 
 The Plains of Nuwara Eliya ,, 134 
 
 Kandy, Looking to the Matele Hills . . . . ,, 173 
 
 Shows the Temple of the Tooth, Buddhist Library, Govern- 
 ment House, Sac. 
 
 Avenue of India-rubber Trees, Peradeniya . . . ,, 187 
 
 Gigantic Bamboos, Peradeniya ,, 190 
 
 The Maha-velli Ganga, from the Satinwood Bridge 
 
 (bamboo foliage) ........ ,, 216 
 
 The Ruanweli Dagoba, Anuradhai'Ura, b.c. 300 . . ,, 268 
 
 To contain right collar-bone of Buddha. To the right is the 
 Government Agent's house 
 
 The Thuparama Dagoba, Anuradhapura, b.c. 300 . . ,, 271 
 
 To the left lies the Delada Maligawa, where the sacred Tooth 
 rested on its arrival from India, A. d. 400 
 
 Pilgrim's Camp and the Three Stone Bulls ... ,, 287 
 
 Near the ruins of the Brazen Temple 
 
 The Sacred Bo-tree ,, 288 
 
 Rising through the upper terrace 
 
 The Lower Flight of the 1,840 Rock Steps . . . ,, 305 
 
 Five-Headed Naga at the Bathing-place, Mihintale . ,, 506
 
 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 The Wata-dAg6, or Round Treasure-house, Pollanarua to face page 390 
 Looking to the Sat-mahal-prasada, or seven-storied building 
 
 The Jetawanarama AND THE KiriViharaat Pollanarua ,, 393 
 
 The Gal Vihara : Rock Temple at Pollanarua ' . • ,, 395- 
 
 Sitting Buddha is 15 feet above pedestal ; erect, 23 feet ; re- 
 cumbent, 46 feet 
 
 The Saami Rock at Trincomalee — Worship at Sunset 
 
 The Lily Shore, near Trincomalee .... 
 
 The Nilwalla River at Matara .... 
 
 Cocoa Palms : Shore of Colombo Lake 
 
 Coffee Fields on the Slopes of Allegalla Peak 
 
 On the summit there is a partly natural indentation which 
 duplicates the Footprint 
 
 Adam's Peak prom Maskeliya 
 
 407 
 421 
 
 445 
 476 
 500 
 
 533 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Castle Jermyn . . 77 
 
 The Worshipful Tooth 207 
 
 Buddha Guarded by the Coera, Rock Temple, Eli.a Pass . . 293 
 
 A Forest Sanctuary 399 
 
 Offerings of red pottery to the God of the Tank at Minery 
 
 Talipot Palm in Blossom On covet
 
 "Ik 
 
 m 
 
 ( LA L O N 
 
 o
 
 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 ^ 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 There are perhaps few families in the Mother Country to whom the 
 farther corners of Great Britain have (from the colonising or sporting 
 instincts of its various members) become more really familiar to the 
 imagination of the younger branches than that to which I was 
 welcomed, as its twelfth addition. 
 
 Thus about the time of my first introduction to the immortal 
 Robinson Crusoe, my eldest brother Penrose returned from Canada, 
 soon to be followed by my second brother Roualeyn, who had made 
 his mark as the pioneer of all the Lion-hunters who since then have 
 ravaged the hunting-grounds of Southern Africa. 
 
 Then two more of the home brood started to carve their fortunes 
 in far countries. Almost simultaneously my fourth and fifth brothers, 
 John and William, sailed for Ceylon and Bombay, where the latter 
 tamed wild men • and slew wild beasts, while the former settled 
 down to sober cocoa-nut planting in the neighbourhood of Batticaloa ; 
 and then, through weary years of waiting for the growth of trees 
 which never in his lifetime repaid his outlay, he obtained work in the 
 forests on the east coast, and likewise distinguished himself as a cun- 
 ning and mighty hunter, beloved by the wild tribes. 
 
 During a term of twenty years, scarcely a month passed without 
 bringing us letters from these two faithful brothers ; so that life in the 
 forests of Ceylon and of Bombay became as familiar to our thoughts 
 as grouse-shooting or salmon-fishing in Morayshire. Some of the 
 details in these sporting diaries might well excite the envy of many 
 
 1 ' Wild Men and Wild Beasts." By Colonel Gordon Cumming. Published by 
 David Douglas, Edinburgh.
 
 2 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 a less successful Nimrod. Thus one mail brought me a letter from 
 India, telling of thirty tigers as the chief item of a two months' bag ; 
 while my Ceylon letter of the same date told of the rejoicing of 
 the villagers over the slaughter, by their white friend, of twenty-five 
 leopards ! — a highly satisfactory riddance of dangerous foes. 
 
 A journey to India or Ceylon in those days was a very different 
 thing from the simple pleasure-trip which, thanks to swift steamers 
 and large competition, it has now become. Though a great advance 
 had been made since the first quarter of the present century, when 
 the colonists in Colombo were only gladdened twice a year by the 
 arrival of a sailing-vessel from England, bringing supplies of Euro- 
 pean clothing and stores, nevertheless, so late as 1840, three months 
 occasionally elapsed without a call from any European sailing-ship, 
 in what was then the open roadstead of Colombo ; so we may well 
 understand that the approach of the smallest steamer would sufifice 
 to throw the population into a fever of excitement. 
 
 In those days the mails from London came via Bombay, whence 
 runners carried them across India and Ceylon, and great was the 
 satisfaction when letters were delivered in Colombo only forty days 
 after their despatch from Britain ! After a while Ceylon started a 
 steamer to carry the mails to and from Bombay, thus reducing the 
 transit to London to thirty days. A few years later, steamers bound 
 for Calcutta or Australia brought mails and passengers direct in 
 twenty days — a period which has been gradually lessened till now 
 some swift steamers deliver their mail-bags in Colombo in fifteen 
 days, and as it occasionally happens that a return steamer is ready 
 to start immediately, it is now possible to receive answers to letters 
 within five weeks.' 
 
 Nor is the reduction on time alone. The cost of travel has also 
 been minimised, and the colonists of the present day need no longer 
 
 1 Still more rapid and wonderful has been the development of our Australian 
 cities with their crowded harbours. But for a strange illustration of the influence ot 
 steam-power at our very doors, we may note Sir Walter Scott's testimony, that in 
 his day (he was my father's friend) one small mail-cart carried the posts between 
 London and Edinburgh, and he mentions having seen it arrive with only one letter 
 addressed to the manager of the British Linen Banking Company. 
 
 Moreover, is it not strange to mark the development as it affects two of what we 
 deem our daily necessaries, potatoes and tea, and remember that the former had never 
 even been heard of till Sir Walter Raleigh imported the first, and that in 1660 Mr. 
 Pepys described tea as ' the new Chinese drink ' ! And now Britain's annual con- 
 sumption of tea is about 180,000,000 lb. , of which about half comes from China and 
 Java, and the other half from India and Ceylon.
 
 INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 face the prospect of such prolonged exile as was deemed a matter 
 of course forty years ago, when the expense of a 'run home' was 
 prohibitive. 
 
 Thus, in the case of these two brothers, though often longing for 
 a sight of home and home faces, fifteen years elapsed ere they were 
 able to make arrangements for a meeting in the old country. 
 The younger happily arrived in safety ; but alas ! the vessel which 
 should have brought the elder from Ceylon, brought tidings of a 
 HOME-going far different from that which he had planned. He had 
 died very suddenly, almost on the eve of the date when he had pur- 
 posed embarking, and was laid to rest beside the blue sea-lake at 
 Batticaloa. 
 
 Barely two years later I made my first voyage to the East, touch- 
 ing Ceylon at Point de Galle eti route to Calcutta. That one 
 glimpse of the lovely isle impressed itself on my memory as such 
 a dream of delight, that when, a few years later, one of my earliest 
 friends was consecrated Bishop of Colombo," I very gladly accepted 
 his invitation to return to Ceylon on a leisurely visit, finding head- 
 quarters under his hospitable roof, and thence exploring such parts 
 of the isle as had special interest for me. 
 
 These interests gradually widened, owing to the unbounded 
 kindness of numerous friends, and friends' friends ; and so it came 
 to pass that so many delightful expeditions were organised, and so 
 many pleasant homes claimed visits, that wellnigh two years slipped 
 away ere I finally bade adieu to the green Isle of Palms, to which, I 
 think, notwithstanding the claims of many a lovely South Sea isle, 
 we must concede the right it claims — to have been, and still to con- 
 tinue, the true Earthly Paradise. 
 
 On my return to Scotland, after widely extended travels, a selec- 
 tion of upwards of three hundred of my water-colour paintings in 
 various parts of ' Greater Britain ' were exhibited in their respective 
 courts in the Indian and Colonial Exhibition at South Kensington, 
 and at subsequent Colonial Exhibitions in Liverpool and Glasgow. 
 Of these, about sixty of scenery in Ceylon were selected from several 
 hundreds, which, on the principle of ' never a day without at least 
 one careful-coloured sketch,' had accumulated as I wandered in every 
 direction — north, south, east, and west — basking on the yellow sands 
 of most fascinating palm-fringed sea-coast, or gliding over calm 
 
 • The Right Rev. Hugh W, Jermyn, now Bishop of Brecbiin and Primus of 
 Scotland. 
 
 » 2
 
 4 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 rivers — gipsying among ruins of mighty pre-Christian cities in the 
 depths of lonely forests, or awaiting the sunrise on lofty mountain- 
 summits — studies of exquisite foliage or of strange Buddhist and 
 Tamil shrines, and all enlivened to memory by the recollection of 
 picturesque groups of brown men, women, and children of divers 
 race and very varied hue, some scantily draped, others gorgeously 
 apparelled, but all alike harmonious in colour. 
 
 Friendly critics, who say that these sketches have helped them 
 to realise something of the true character and beauty of Ceylonese 
 scenery, have asked me to supplement the brush with the pen, and tell 
 the readers who have so kindly received my noies of travel in other 
 lands something of my own impressions of Ceylon. So now I sit 
 surrounded with diaries and letters, travel-notes and sketch-books 
 innumerable, and portfolios in which each page recalls some day of 
 deep interest and many of delight ; while the signatures in the 
 corner of each sketch vividly recall the many friends whose kindness 
 did so much to gladden all days, and to smooth all difficulties from 
 the path of a happy guest. 
 
 My chief difficulty lies in selecting from such a mass of material 
 only so much as can be compressed within reasonable limits. 
 Another difficulty lies in a far too personal knowledge of certain 
 changes which, to those intimately acquainted with Ceylon, mark a 
 complete revolution in its social economy, and which gave birth to a 
 very sad parody of certain well-known lines descriptive of an isle of 
 which for some years it was too true that — 
 
 ' every prospect pleases, 
 But no man makes a pile ! ' 
 
 To the general reader, however, and to the traveller likely to fol- 
 low in my footsteps, the only visible feature of a change which to 
 the initiated tells of the total ruin of very many industrious and 
 energetic European planters, and the commencement of an altogether 
 new era, bringing wealth to a new generation, lies in the fact that 
 the vast mountain districts, which ten years ago presented one un- 
 broken expanse of coffee-fields, are now chiefly covered with tea- 
 plantations, varied with cinchona, cacao, Indian-rubber trees, and 
 other products, more or less experimental, while only in certain dis- 
 tricts is coffee successfully proving its claim to renewed public con- 
 fidence. There is apparently, however, no doubt that Ceylon will 
 henceforth be emphatically distinguished in the manner so happily
 
 INTRODUCTORY S 
 
 described by the present CJovernor, Sir Arthur Havelock, as ' the 
 land for excellent tea.' That its character in this respect is already 
 well established is evident from the fact, that whereas in 1873 only 
 231b. of tea were exported from Ceylon, the export in 1890 was 
 about 40,000,000 lb. ; and there seems every reason to believe that 
 in the current year 1891 it will be fully 63,000,000 ; and assuredly, 
 long ere the end of the century, it will have risen to 100,000,000 ! ^ 
 
 Nor is there any fear of a glut in the market, since America and 
 Russia have proved appreciative customers. The chief danger lies 
 in the probability that Brazil and Madras will each be stimulated to 
 enter into the competition. Patriotic planters are adjured to refrain 
 from selling tea-seed to Brazil ; but as regards Madras, it not only 
 possesses a vast area of suitable land, but, moreover, commands all 
 the labour, Ceylon being entirely dependent on that Presidency for 
 her coolies. So that rivalry is to be feared from that quarter. 
 
 Simultaneously with the amazingly rapid development of this new 
 product, 1 89 1 has to record the most successful Pearl-fishery of the 
 present century, the Government share of the total amount realised 
 being upwards of 96,370/., of which about 10,000/. covers all 
 expenses, so that the revenue profits to an extent far exceeding the 
 most golden expectations. In 18S8 these fisheries realised 80,424/. 
 less 8,000/. of expenses. Such sums had only been realised four 
 
 ' I cannot resist quoting the following paragraph from the ' Pall Mall Budget ' for 
 March 13, 1891 : — 
 
 ' An enormous Price for Ceylon Tea. 
 
 ' Unusual excitement prevailed on Tuesday in Mincing Lane, on the offering by 
 Messrs. Gow, Wilson, and Stanton, tea-brokers, in public auction, of a small lot of 
 Ceylon tea from the Gartmore estate in Maskeliya (Mr. T. C. Anderson). This tea 
 possesses extraordinary quality in liquor, and is composed almost entirely of small 
 "golden tips," which are the extreme ends of the small succulent shoots of the plant, 
 and the preparation of such tea is, of course, most costly. Competition was of a 
 very keen description. The bidding, which was pretty general to start with, com- 
 menced with an offer of i/. xs. per lb. ; as the price advanced to 8/. many buyers 
 dropped out, and at this price about five wholesale dealers were willing to purchase. 
 Offers were then made up to about 9/. 95. by three of the leading houses, the tea 
 being ultimately knocked down to the ' ' Mazawattee Ceylon Tea Company " at the 
 most extraordinary and unprecedented price of 10/. i2j. 6d. per lb.' 
 
 Naturally, when this news reached Ceylon the excitement knew no bounds. 
 This, however, was intensified in the following month, when another sale of ' golden 
 tips,' prepared on the Haviland estate (Mr. W. A. M. Denison), sold in Mincing Lane 
 for 17/. per lb. Even this surprising price was, however, very soon surpassed, for 
 the next consignment of ' golden tips ' from Gartmore fetched 25/ \os. per lb. This 
 was quickly followed by the sale of a small box from the Kellie estate at 30/. per lb. ; 
 while, on August 25, another parcel was actually sold at 35/. per lb.
 
 6 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 times in the present century : therefore, that two such fisheries 
 should follow in such rapid succession, is an unspeakable blessing to 
 Ceylon. From 1882 to 1886 the return from these fisheries had 
 been almost nil; but in the years 1887, 1889, and 1890, a total 
 was realised of 120,720/., less 1,489/. of expenses. Naturally the 
 colonists look for immediate railway extension in divers directions, 
 and for other boons which, ten years ago, seemed altogether 
 visionary. 
 
 A notable advance in the last decade has been that of the steadily 
 increasing prosperity of a multitude of native cultivators, owing 
 to the restoration of several of the cyclopean tanks and other 
 irrigation works, created by the autocratic rulers of olden days, but 
 which (partly since British rule rejected the ancient custom of 
 ' Rajah-kariya ' — i.e. compulsory work for the king — by which the 
 rulers of the Isle exacted from every man so many days' work 
 annually for the general weal) had fallen into total decay, so that a 
 scanty and unhealthy population could barely find subsistence in 
 the arid jungle or malarious swamps which replaced the verdant 
 rice-fields of olden days. 
 
 In the face of many difficulties and strenuous opposition on 
 account of the great outlay involved. Sir William Gregory and the 
 Honourable Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon have accomplished a 
 work earnestly advocated by previous Governors, Sir Henry Ward 
 and Sir Hercules Robinson— namely, the restoration of a con- 
 siderable portion of the ancient system of irrigation ; and already 
 the wisdom of the measure is abundantly proved by the transfor- 
 mation of great areas of country, where luxuriant crops now once 
 more support a healthy and well-fed population. 
 
 Another great boon to the hitherto poverty-stricken and suffering 
 villagers has been the establishment in many districts of village hos- 
 pitals, where the sick are now wisely and judiciously cared for, to the 
 immense improvement of the general health. 
 
 Yet another marked change in the last few years has been the 
 construction of the mighty breakwater, upwards of 4,000 feet in 
 length, of huge blocks of concrete, on a foundation of masses of 
 gneiss, thanks to which Colombo now owns a harbour so excellent 
 and secure as to have drawn thither almost all the traffic of the Isle, 
 while beautiful but treacherous Point de Galle is now wellnigh for- 
 saken — a change that was not effected until many a noble vessel had 
 proved to her cost the lurking dangers of numerous patches 01
 
 INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 coral within the harbour, rising from the ocean-bed ahiiost to the 
 surface. 
 
 But for this, the situation of Galle marks it as the natural port of 
 call for vessels, inasmuch as turning in to Colombo involves a con- 
 siderable deviation from their course ; so it may be that as the com- 
 merce of the Isle increases, it may yet prove worth while to clear the 
 seemingly noble harbour of Point de Galle of its submarine dangers, 
 and so woo back the vanished shipping. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, the fact remains that Galle harbour is now 
 comparatively forsaken. Few vessels enter her port save those 
 engaged in the coal or coir trade.' 
 
 The offices of the great shipping companies, and of the principal 
 mercantile houses, have been transferred to Colombo (which has 
 long been the Government headquarters), and pleasant luxurious 
 homes in which, but a few years ago, kindly hospitality reigned, are now- 
 let at almost nominal prices to tenants who are content to dwell in 
 peace in quiet habitations apart from the busy tide of commerce. 
 The census, however, shows an increase in the population in the last 
 ten years from 31,743 to 33.5o5- 
 
 But in the same period the population of Colombo has increased 
 from 112,068 to 127,643, and its harbour is now crowded with ships 
 of all nations. Sometimes fifteen to twenty steamers are simulta- 
 neously busy coaling and receiving or discharging cargo, Sunday and 
 week-day alike — a terribly busy scene, and, as regards the Sunday 
 work, very hard on all concerned, — and almost all, remember, 
 whether sailors or landsmen, are British subjects. Of course the 
 majority of these vessels are British merchantmen, but men-of-war of 
 all nations come and go. On May 20, 1890, there were no fewer 
 than six in harbour, three of which were Spanish, one French, and 
 two British, and by a curious coincidence one of each nation was an 
 admiral's flagship. That of the Spanish admiral, the Crucero Cas- 
 tilla, was a noble old wooden three-decker, such as Turner would 
 have loved to paint. Then came the German and Dutch vessels 
 and two Japanese men-of-war conveying the survivors of a wrecked 
 Turkish ship, the Ertugroul, back to their ow^n country. 
 
 A considerable number of Russian vessels, men-of-war and 
 others, have also found their way here, some bringing Grand Dukes, 
 and the Tsarevitch himself, while one was conveying a new governor 
 
 ' Coir is the coarse fibre obtained from the outer husk of the cocoa-nut, which so 
 abounds on the southern coast.
 
 8 TH^O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 to Eastern Siberia, and another, alas ! brought 644 luckless convicts 
 en route from Odessa to their dreary Siberian exile. Amongst others 
 was a Russian whaler on her way to the North Seas, and furnished 
 with the newest thing in harpoons— horrible weapons, each carrying 
 with it a glass ball containing an explosive, which on striking the 
 whale's body blows it into pieces, a method one would suppose better 
 adapted for oiling the waves than for securing a cargo ! 
 
 To provide additional space for anchorage, and also increased 
 security for this ever-increasing traffic, a second great breakwater is 
 about to be constructed to form a protecting northern arm, that the 
 harbour may be absolutely first-rate. 
 
 After recording such a giant stride in Colombo's standing in the 
 shipping world, the fact that her import of coal has in the last ten 
 years risen from 8,336 tons to 250,338 tons follows almost as a matter 
 of course. 
 
 So month by month Colombo progresses and becomes more and 
 more a place of resort, and her streets are thronged with human 
 beings of every conceivable nationality and of every shade of colour 
 — white, yellow, olive, sienna, cinnamon, and dark brown — and clad 
 in divers uniforms, to say nothing of the wondrous variety of non- 
 official raiment. 
 
 To facilitate their locomotion a large number of 'jinrikishas ' 
 have been imported — i.e. the ' man-power carriage' of Japan, which 
 is a lightly built bath-chair on two modern very large light wheels, 
 very convenient for the person seated in it, whose weight ought to 
 regulate the number of his human ponies. What a fortune the 
 original inventor of these little machines might have made had he 
 secured a patent for even the primitive form devised by some inge- 
 nious Japanese only about twenty years ago ! Already in the city 
 of Tokio alone there are upwards of 30,000 in constant use, and in 
 Japan at large fully 200,000 ! And now the jinrikisha is as familiar 
 and indispensable in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Penang, and Colombo, 
 as in its native land. It may interest future generations to know that 
 the very first was imported into Ceylon in May 1883. 
 
 Meanwhile, during these same years, the grievous collapse in the 
 coffee trade left some scars on Colombo, where great coffee -stores, 
 with all their once busy machinery and crowds of workers, were 
 deserted— grass and weeds overspreading the drying-grounds, and 
 costly buildings being left to fall to decay — a sorry aspect of dead 
 trade which cannot be revived by the new products of tea and cacao,
 
 INTRODUCTORY 9 
 
 inasmuch as these are prepared for market on the estates where they 
 are grown. 
 
 But on the other hand the city has been improved and beautified 
 in many ways, notably by the generous Jubilee gift of the late 
 Governor, the Honourable Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon, in the trans- 
 formation of the old Fort Green (a small grassy common surrounded 
 by ' tulip ' trees, and occasionally used as a cricket-ground) into 
 a fine terraced garden, with banks of greenest turf, crowned by an 
 octagonal fountain whence cool waters flow by divers channels to 
 supply other pools and fountains, in one of which the magnificent 
 Victoria Regia has already flowered freely. Here rosy oleanders, 
 crotons of all gorgeous hues, feathery palms, and all manner of 
 flowers lend fragrance and colour to what will henceforth be the 
 favourite afternoon lounge, more especially on those days when the 
 excellent band adds the further attraction of good music. 
 
 From a business point of view Colombo has advanced pro- 
 digiously in general traffic, and many and various improvements 
 mark progress in divers directions, giving evidence of the happily 
 reviving energies of the Isle, and proving how well her adopted sons 
 have now applied the dearly bought lessons of past experience. 
 
 The Colombo iron-works turn out work that would do credit to 
 Newcastle, from the casting of iron pillars for the Grand Hotel, to 
 the building of steel barges, and the manufacturing of tea-machinery, 
 and of sundry engines for use on land and sea ; also the repairing of 
 damaged vessels. 
 
 But foremost among the grand new industries is the steam cotton 
 spinning and weaving factory, established on the brink of the Welle- 
 watta Canal, on a site which, two or three years ago, was a dense 
 jungle of neglected cinnamon. Now a huge factory has been erected, 
 and 10,000 spindles and 150 looms are already busily at work, with 
 every probability that ere long there will be such a demand for these 
 home-made fabrics that 100,000 spindles, and looms to correspond, 
 will find ample work. 
 
 Of course this must prove an immense incentive to the growth of 
 cotton (the amount carried by the railway to Colombo advanced 
 from 32 tons in the first year to 289 tons the following year), and 
 doubtless thousands of acres of now waste jungle-land will shortly be 
 transformed into busy cotton-fields. 
 
 The growing and weaving of cotton is no new thing in the Isle, 
 for long before the Christian era both were extensively carried on, as
 
 lo TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLOM 
 
 were also the arts of bleaching and dyeing, and mention is made in 
 the Mahawansa of a canopy in the ancient city of Anuradhapura, 
 which was formed of eight thousand pieces of every hue. That was 
 B.C. i6i. 
 
 Early in the present century a large quantity of cotton was grown 
 in the northern province, and was extensively manufactured by the 
 weavers of Jaffna and Manaar till the imposition of a five per cent, 
 tax to Government on island -made cloth, instead of on imported 
 cotton goods, in a great measure discouraged their industry. The 
 weavers of Batticaloa on the east coast and Chilaw on the west, have 
 long been famous for excellent bed and table linen, and the native 
 looms of Saffragam and Galle turn out well-made white cottons. 
 
 According to official returns for 1887, there were then 15 hand- 
 looms in the southern province, 21 in the north-western, 429 in the 
 eastern, and 575 in the northern province. The cultivation of the 
 cotton plant, however, has not been systematic, and its experimental 
 growth by European planters has not been altogether encouraging, 
 though a good deal has been grown by natives. Now, however, it 
 has been satisfactorily proved that in certain soils it will grow well 
 and bear abundantly, and cautious native capitalists deem its success 
 so certain that they are forming companies for cotton-growing on a 
 large scale, as well as investing largely in the Colombo mills. 
 
 Of course here, as in India, the giant steam-power will ruthlessly 
 swallow up all the interesting native arts of hand-spinning and 
 weaving, and already the weavers of Batticaloa have yielded to the 
 inevitable, and have come to Colombo to learn the new methods and 
 secure employment, and homes in the new village of comfortable 
 cottages which the company are erecting for their workers. 
 
 One excellent thing in connection with these cotton spinning and 
 weaving mills is, that the work thus provided has furnished the 
 Wesleyan missionaries with the opportunity for establishing industrial 
 homes and schools for destitute boys and girls. The Home has been 
 erected close to the mills, which provide ample work for the young folk, 
 whose board, lodging, and clothing, as well as moral and religious 
 training, are the care of their missionary friends. This work of 
 mercy is an all-round benefit, the manager of the mills being well 
 pleased to have so reliable a staff of young workers always at hand, 
 instead of having to look for an irregular supply from the villages. 
 
 I may add that simultaneously with the establishment of these 
 industrial schools in Colombo, admirable schools of the same class
 
 INTRODUCTORY ii 
 
 (though more of a reformatory character) have been estabHshed by 
 another Wesleyan missionary, Mr. Langdon, at Haputale, chiefly for 
 the hitherto grievously neglected children in the province of Uva. 
 
 In concluding these introductory words, let me briefly forewarn 
 travellers who purpose visiting India and Ceylon, that they will find 
 the latter poorer in startling scenic effects. Here there are no mighty 
 forts which seem to have been ' built by giants and finished by 
 jewellers ' — no fairy-like lace-work sculptured in marble — no solemn 
 grandeur of great Mohammedan mosques, nor bewildering intricacy 
 of detail in sculpture as in the Hindoo temples ; while, as compared 
 with the marvellous rock-temples of India, those of Ceylon are 
 grievously disappointing. Neither are there such striking street- 
 scenes as one finds in many an Indian city, nor such bewildering 
 crowds of gorgeously apparelled rajahs with their camels and ele- 
 phants.' Therefore, for all such impressions, visit Ceylon first and 
 India afterwards. 
 
 But, for archaeological interest, the pre-Christian and medieval 
 cities of Ceylon, so long buried in the silent depths of the great 
 forests, are altogether unique ; and for luxuriant loveliness of tropical 
 foliage, Tahiti itself cannot surpass this Isle of Palms. 
 
 I would fain hope that those who have patience to peruse these 
 notes of two of the happiest years of my life, may discover something 
 of the many attractions of Ceylon. Nevertheless, I fear that no 
 words can adequately describe her fascination. So I can only advise 
 all who have the power to travel leisurely, to go themselves and enjoy 
 a winter there 
 
 1 For 'details of a never-to-be-forgotten year in Hindoostan, see ' In'the Himalayas, 
 and on Indian Plains.' By C. F. Gordon Gumming. Published by Chatto & Windus.
 
 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MY FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE TROPICS 
 
 ' Where Champac odours float, 
 Like sweet thoughts in a dream.' 
 
 Aden versus Ceylon — Fragrant breezes — Canoes — Singhalese, Tamils, and Moormen 
 — Singhalese love of gambling — Point de Galle — ' Hothouse flowers' at home — 
 Discordant voices — Fire-beetles — Phosphorescence — Corals — Cocoa-palms — View 
 of Galle— Sail for Calcutta. 
 
 To begin with, let me recall my very first impressions of this paradise, 
 when, en route to the Himalayas, we touched at Point de Galle, and 
 there obtained our first glimpse of the tropics — a delight never to be 
 excelled in any subsequent wanderings. 
 
 In those days there was no Suez Canal ; so travellers were landed 
 at Alexandria, and crossed Egypt to Suez, whence another steamer 
 carried them down the Red Sea to Aden, and thence eastward. 
 
 It would be difficult to imagine contrast more complete, as oppo- 
 site types of Creation, than the scenes thus successively revealed, like 
 dissolving views in the panorama of travel — Aden and Ceylon — the 
 former like a vision of some ruined world, the latter the very ideal of 
 Eden : there a stifling atmosphere and scorching rocks, seemingly 
 without one blade of grass whereon to rest the wearied eye ; here a 
 balmy sleepy air, laden with the fragrance of our rarest hothouse 
 flowers, clustering in densest luxuriance amid tangled mazes of infi- 
 nitely varied verdure. Creamy blossoms with large glossy leaves ; 
 crimson and gold gleaming like gems, from their setting of dehcate 
 green shadow ; an endless variety of tropical flowers growing in wild 
 confusion over hill and plain ; delicate creepers festooning the larger 
 shrubs, and linking together the tall graceful palms with a perfect 
 network of tendrils and blossoms, or finding their home in every 
 crevice of the rocks, and veiling them with fairy drapery. 
 
 Every shrub is covered with young fresh leaves of many tints ; 
 for here we have perpetual spring as well as continual autumn, and
 
 MV FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE TROPICS 13 
 
 though the ground is always strewn with withered leaves, new life is 
 for ever bursting forth, in hues which we are wont to call autumnal, 
 and which in Britain speak to us only of approaching winter and 
 death. Some trees there are whose sombre foliage is always tipped 
 with young leaves of vivid crimson ; others which seem to change 
 their leaves periodically, and which one week burst forth in brilliant 
 scarlet, then gradually deepen to crimson, changing to olive ; finally 
 the whole tree becomes green. 
 
 Long before we sighted the beautiful Isle, the breath of these 
 tropical forests ' met us out on the seas ' ; and as so many people, 
 who do not happen when nearing the coast to have been favoured 
 with a land-wind, laugh at the idea of ' spice-laden breezes,' I may as 
 well state that again and again in southern seas, even when out of 
 sight of land (notably when passing Cape Comorin), I have for several 
 hours been rejoiced by a balmy breeze off shore, like the atmosphere 
 of a greenhouse, recalling the delicate scent of primulas. It has been 
 as unmistakable as is the fragrance of birch-woods in the Highlands 
 after summer rain, or that of resinous fir-needles in the noonday 
 sun. 
 
 As we neared the Isle, some of our party confessed themselves 
 disappointed, even though we were favoured with a clear view of 
 Adam's Peak, rising in solitary beauty above the blue mountain- 
 ranges, right in the heart of the Isle. But in truth these lie so far 
 inland that the unaccustomed eye fails to recognise their height ; 
 and the coast, with its endless expanse of cocoa-palm topes fringing 
 the coral strand, is certainly somewhat monotonous as seen from 
 the sea. 
 
 Not till we were gliding into the calm harbour did we realise the 
 fascination of the scene, when, from those white sands overshadowed 
 by palms, we espied curious objects coming towards us over the blue 
 rippling water. In the distance they looked like great sea-spiders 
 with very long legs ; but as they approached and turned sideways, 
 we saw that they were long narrow canoes, most curiously constructed, 
 each being simply the hollow trunk of a tree, with raised bulwarks 
 stitched on with twisted cocoa-nut fibre. They ride high on the 
 water, and the long oars produce the spider-like effect aforesaid. 
 
 Some of the larger canoes are from forty to sixty feet in length, 
 and carry many human beings ; but the width is so small that there 
 is never room for two persons to sit abreast. Of course such hollowed 
 trees would inevitably roll over were they not balanced by a long heavy
 
 14 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 log, which, Hke the canoe itself, is pointed at both ends, and floats 
 alongside at a distance of about ten feet, being attached to the boat 
 by two strong bamboos tied on at right angles, thus staying the craft 
 fore and aft. 
 
 This outrigger, as it is called, is applied on one side only, and 
 must always be kept to windward, hence tacking is impossible ; so the 
 canoe is constructed to go either backward or forward. The quaint 
 brown sail forms a triangle between two bamboos, which meet in a 
 point at bow or stern alternately ; and when this is hoisted, the canoe 
 literally flies before the breeze — the strength of which is described 
 as a ' one-man breeze ' or a ' two- or three-man breeze,' according to 
 how many human beings must help to steady the boat by adding 
 their weight to that of the floating log, by either standing on it or on 
 the connecting bamboos. Very picturesque are these lithe, rich 
 brown figures, ever and anon half swamped by the waves, as they 
 stand with rope in hand, ready at a moment's notice to haul down the 
 sail. Most of the fishermen wear wide-brimmed straw hats, and 
 scanty drapery consisting of a couple of gay pocket-handkerchiefs — 
 one of which, knotted round the shoulders, perhaps displays a por- 
 trait of the Pope or of the Madonna, which, together with the small 
 crucifix hanging from the neck, shows them to be members of the 
 Church of Rome. 
 
 Even the tiniest canoes are balanced by the floating outrigger, so 
 that very small children paddle themselves about the harbour in per- 
 fect safety ; and a number of most fascinating little traders came 
 round us offering fruit and coral for sale. Ere our vessel reached 
 her moorings she was boarded by a crowd of merchants — we should 
 call them pedlars — offering us curious treasures ; but to us the sellers 
 were far more interesting than their wares — especially the gentle, 
 comely Singhalese, who in every respect contrast with the last brown 
 race we had seen (namely, the hideous Somalis of Aden, with their 
 fuzzy lime-washed yellow hair), just as strikingly as do the lands 
 which gave them birth. 
 
 We very quickly learnt to distinguish three totally distinct ele- 
 ments in the crowd of brown men, each representing totally different 
 branches of the human family. The clear, sienna-coloured Singha- 
 lese, who number about sixty per cent, of the total population, are of 
 pure Aryan race, and are the descendants of the conquerors who 
 adopted ' Singha,' a lion, as their emblem, and who in far back ages 
 swept down from Northern India. The dark-brown Tamils hail from
 
 MV FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE TROPICS 15 
 
 the Malabar coast in Southern India, and are of the Dravidian family. 
 Some are descended from early conquerors, others are recruited year 
 by year from the mainland to do the hard work of the Isle, and 
 together these number about thirty-three per cent, of the total popu- 
 lation. 
 
 On the present occasion the leaders of the invasion were mostly 
 Moormen, who, though few in proportion to the races aforesaid 
 (numbering only six per cent, of the whole), hold a very strong posi- 
 tion, being the most energetic traders of the Isle. They claim to be 
 descended from Arabian merchants who settled in Ceylon two thou- 
 sand years ago, and so represent a third great branch of the human 
 tree — namely, the Semitic. In complexion they are pale copper- 
 colour, and the majority have black beards. Their shaven heads are 
 crowned with high straw hats made without a brim, and these are 
 often covered with a yellow turban. They are peculiarly well-built 
 men, taller than either the delicately formed Singhalese or the sturdy 
 Tamils. 
 
 Conspicuous among the latter are the Chetties or Hindoo mer- 
 chants from the coast of India, who are easily recognised by their 
 enormous ear-rings, and who are accompanied by coolies carrying 
 bales of really precious merchandise, which they are only too anxious 
 to unpack and display on the faintest chance of a sale. 
 
 Perhaps the readiest way of distinguishing between Tamils and 
 Singhalese is that the former bear on their forehead the symbol of the 
 heathen god at whose shrine they have last worshipped — a spot, a 
 circle, straight or curved lines in white, black, red, or yellow ; ' and 
 also almost invariably retain their national head-dress, namely, the 
 very becoming turban, — whereas (with the exception of the Anglicised 
 clerks, who adopt European dress in every detail save that they wrap 
 a long waist-cloth over their trousers) the low-country Singhalese of 
 every degree are always bareheaded— their long, glossy, black hair, 
 of very fine quality, being turned back from the face, held by a semi- 
 circular comb round the back of the head, and coiled at the back in 
 a knot, which men of the wealthier classes secure by means of a 
 handsome, very large tortoise-shell comb, which contributes another 
 touch to the feminine appearance of the ' pretty,' and, for the most 
 part, beardless men. 
 
 In truth, a new-comer is rather apt to think that all the Singhalese 
 
 ' For full details of these, see ' In the Himalayas,' by C. F. Gordon Cumming, 
 pp. 23, 24. Published by Chatto & Windus,
 
 1 6 ri^VO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 are women, and that the stalwart Moormen and Tamils are the sole 
 lords of the creation ! And the mistake is very natural, for men and 
 women generally dress almost alike — with neat white jacket, and a 
 long white cloth wrapped round the waist, so as to form a very tight 
 skirt down to the ankles. This is called a comhoy, and a more in- 
 convenient walking-dress could not be imagined. The men are 
 almost as slender and delicate in figure as the women, and have very 
 small hands — in fact, the most obvious distinction between the sexes 
 is that the tortoise-shell comb is a masculine monopoly, the women 
 generally fastening their hair with silver pins. I observed that the 
 firmly coiled back hair is used by both men and women as a conve- 
 nient receptacle for pins and needles ! 
 
 Tortoise-shell forms one of the most attractive items in Ceylonese 
 manufactures. Beautiful combs of all shapes and sizes — bracelets, 
 chains, bunches of charms — some of the palest amber, some dark and 
 mounted in silver. The palest yellow is by far the most valuable, 
 being, I believe, formed of the tortoise claws only. 
 
 Jewellers are numerous, for the gems of Ceylon are far-famed ; 
 but of course the fact that (with the exception of diamonds and 
 emeralds) every known gem is found on the Isle leads to an amazing 
 amount of cheatery, and vast numbers of sham jewels are pawned off 
 on unwary travellers. ' Damned-fool steamboat gentlemen ' is, I 
 regret to say, the name by which this section of the white race is 
 commonly described by the astute natives. 
 
 Most of these sham gems are manufactured in the isle of Murano, 
 near Venice, and are thence sent to Britain, where they are set in 
 purest gold from the mines of Birmingham, and then forwarded to 
 Ceylon, amongst other christianising influences of civilisation. They 
 are known to the merchants as 'steamboat jewels,' and offered at 
 fabulous prices, which are liable to amazingly swift reduction. Each 
 trader describes his own store as a priceless collection of real stones, 
 whereas all his neighbours have only real glass ! 
 
 Then there are vendors of cinnamon-sticks, of ebony and ivory 
 carving, of grass shoes, of beautifully carved boxes of sandal-wood, 
 of coral shells, and fruit. We were chiefly captivated by bird-sellers, 
 who coaxed us to buy whole families of darling little green love-birds, 
 and who proved how tame they were by perching the tiny creatures 
 on each wire of our sunshades, where they walked about happily and 
 contented. Vain were the friendly warnings which whispered of most 
 villanous love-potions, and told how the dainty birds had been
 
 MV FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE TROPICS 17 
 
 drugged for the market. Of course we invested largely, and for the 
 rest of the voyage our time was divided between feeding our lovely 
 playthings with sugar-cane, and rescuing them from dangers and 
 perils of open ports, cold baths, and unwary footsteps. One or two 
 of them did manage to walk out of the window in our cabin, 
 and our aviary met with divers mischances before we reached 
 Calcutta. 
 
 We were soon instructed in the detestal)le Eastern custom of 
 offering a quarter of the price asked, and gradually rising till the 
 buyer meets the seller half-way, and while so doing we witnessed an 
 instance of the extraordinary love of gambling which is one of the 
 most striking peculiarities of the Singhalese — a weakness well known 
 to old travellers, and occasionally taken full advantage of. It seems 
 as if no bet could be proposed too ludicrous for some one in the 
 crowd to take it up, no terms too preposterous. 
 
 The case in point was that of a lady who was bargaining for a very 
 beautiful large tortoise-shell comb. The price asked was high, that 
 offered was so absurdly low that it was at once refused, and the 
 matter dropped. Just then a bystander said jokingly, ' I'll toss you 
 whether I give you the sum she offered, or nothing.' ' Done,' was 
 the reply. The merchant won the toss, and pocketed the ludicrously 
 small sum without a murmur, the lady receiving the coveted comb 
 as a memorial of Singhalese gambling. 
 
 Of course we very soon found our way ashore, and explored the 
 old fortress and batteries which tell of the successive occupation of 
 Galle by the Portuguese and Dutch, each of whom left abiding traces 
 on the Isle, in the form of fortifications, churches, and houses ; while 
 their descendants form distinct bodies in the heterogeneous popula- 
 lation which has drifted hither from so many lands — Persia, China, 
 Malacca, Arabia, Coromandel, and Northern India, to say nothing 
 of the pale-faced races of Europe. 
 
 I cannot say that the handiwork of the Dutch is generally poetic, 
 but here all prosaic details are glorified by the wealth of vegetation, 
 and even the fortress and the streets are shaded by Suriya trees — 
 i.e. the yellow Thespesia populnea., whose delicate straw-coloured 
 blossoms contrast so beautifully with its dark glossy leaves. And 
 the pleasant bungalows, with their wide pillared verandahs, which 
 form the coolest and most delightful resting-place in the heat of 
 the day (being invariably furnished with comfortable chairs), are one 
 and all embowered in gardens where all lovely things grow in rank 
 
 c
 
 i8 TWO HAPPY YEARS W CEYLON 
 
 profusion, veiling the pillars and half covering the roof — exquisite 
 blue clitoria, orange venusta, purple passion-flowers, lilac and white 
 clematis, mingling their starry blossoms with those of the glorious 
 crimson tacsonia and splendid blue or white convolvulus ; and 
 luxuriant fuchsias, while heliotrope, gardenias, and roses blend their 
 fragrance with that of the loquot and orange-blossom, and with the 
 breezy freshness of the sunny sea. 
 
 Of course we experimentalised on all manner of Eastern fruits, 
 doubly tempting because offered by such comely and gentle brown 
 people, and amongst other novelties we proved the excellence of 
 bright-green ripe oranges, followed by a more serious luncheon of 
 pine-apples and divers curries of superlative excellence, after which 
 we started for a drive, so as to make the best possible use of the 
 exquisite afternoon. 
 
 Our road lay through groves of graceful and luxuriant palms, 
 bread-fruit, and jak trees with their glossy foliage and huge fruit, 
 and thickets of flowering-shrubs, whose delicious fragrance scented 
 the air. Here and there we passed a group of Flamboyants — mag- 
 nificent trees, well named ' the Flame of the Forest,' so gorgeous are 
 the masses of scarlet and gold blossom, which in May and June rest 
 on delicate feathery foliage of dazzling green. Especially fascinating 
 to us was the Hibiscus mutabilis, a shrub whose masses of rose-like 
 blossoms daily change from white to crimson. Each morning sees 
 the bush covered with newly opened flowers gleaming like freshly 
 fallen snow, and ere the sun sets all have assumed a lovely rose 
 colour. 
 
 Exquisite living creatures, gossamer-winged, skimmed through 
 the blossoming forest in this sweet summer-world. Amid the flame- 
 coloured and golden blossoms flitted splendid butterflies, some pale 
 blue, some yellow, others velvety black with crimson spots, and 
 brilliant metallic-looking dragon-flies. 
 
 Flowers familiar to us only in stoves and hothouses were there in 
 wild luxuriance — ipomeas, convolvuli, orchids, the quaint pitcher- 
 plant, and many another blossom ; while ferns which we deem rare 
 and precious formed a rich undergrowth of golden-green, the loveliest 
 of all being the climbing-ferns, which, creeping on delicate hair-like 
 stem, form a tangle of exquisitely dainty foliage veiling trees and 
 shrubs. In some districts I have seen these growing to such a 
 height, and hanging from the trees in such masses, that the natives 
 cut them as we would cut bracken, and use them for thatch, the
 
 MV FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE TROPICS 19 
 
 long black stems reaching down to the ground, and acting as rain- 
 conductors. 
 
 Here and there clumps of graceful bamboo waved their feathery 
 branches ; and broad shining leaves of the yam, resembling huge 
 caladiums, and the still larger and more glossy plantain, clustered 
 round the picturesque native huts, whence pleasant, cheery-looking 
 people or curious small brown children came to offer us flowers or 
 wonderful toys, made of strips of palm-leaf, twisted into stars, wheels, 
 birds of paradise, and all manner of strange forms, suspended on long 
 thin grasses, so as to tremble and quiver with a breath — most inge- 
 nious creations. 
 
 What these people may really be, a casual traveller cannot of 
 course judge, but they look like embodiments of contentment : their 
 rich mellow bronze colouring is most attractive, while their soft brown 
 eyes suggest deep wells of quiet thought. It does seem so strange at 
 first to be in a land where all eyes are brown, and all hair black, and 
 straight, and silky ! 
 
 Before these novelties had lost their first charm we had reached 
 Wakwella, a hill clothed with cocoa and other palms, overlooking a 
 fair valley, richly wooded, and through which the Gindura, a broad 
 river glittering like silver, and with a thousand silvery veins, was 
 winding westward through vividly green rice-fields to the sea. 
 
 We sat on a grassy headland and watched the soft grey and blue 
 and gleaming green blending in the silvery sea. Presently, as the 
 sun lowered, the light grew golden, and poured in misty rays of glory, 
 adding its dreamlike beauty to the forests of cocoa-palms and the 
 ranges of lovely hills. It was a scene of intense peace, only marred, 
 as is too often the case, by the human voice — doubtless the raw 
 material for perfect music hereafter, but, as a general rule, strangely 
 discordant with nature's calm in its present crude form. 
 
 I have sometimes listened in amazement to discussions as to the 
 relative anguish of losing sight or hearing, and have marvelled almost 
 invariably to hear the crown of sorrow awarded to the latter ! Just 
 think of the endless variety of joy which the soul drinks in through 
 the eye, compared with the very divided pleasures of hearing — the 
 countless harmonies of form and colour on which the eye rests 
 unwearied with ever new delight, compared with the few chords 
 of melody in all the jarring world of sound. How few notes that 
 are never discordant ! How few voices that never become weari- 
 some, for no other reason than just because they are sounds ! It
 
 26 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 seems as if perfect silence was the one joy of life most hopelessly 
 unattainable. 
 
 So, at all events, we thought on that calm evening, the repose of 
 which was utterly destroyed by the arrival of many fellow-creatures. 
 There was nothing for it but to make a mutual-protection party, 
 bound by a solemn vow of silence, and to retreat to the farthest spur 
 of the hill, where we might sit and drink in the loveliness of that 
 strange dreamy shore, while earth's many voices sang soft lullabies, 
 and soothed us to rest. 
 
 Even here, however, all harmony was marred by one jarring 
 sound, namely, the everlasting hum of the cicala, whose myriad army 
 holds its noisy revel in every Eastern grove, utterly destroying what 
 should be the principal charm of the solemn forests— the vainly 
 longed-for silence. But as the sun sank below the horizon a sudden 
 stillness fell on all insect-life, like the sudden stopping of machinery. 
 The ear could scarcely realise relief so sudden. Then we were con- 
 scious that the noisy bipeds had likewise all departed with the day- 
 light, and that we too must follow. 
 
 Beautiful night-moths appeared, hovering among the blossoms 
 with tremulous flutter and sudden dart like humming-birds. Then 
 through the darkening foliage flashed a thousand fire-flies in mazy 
 circling dance, suggesting the invisible presence of Titania and her 
 maidens, crowned with pale-green flames. These spirit-lights appear 
 and disappear suddenly, as each insect, at its own sweet will, shows 
 or veils its fairy beacon — a tiny intermittent spark. These dainty 
 torch-bearers are in reality minute beetles, not much bigger than a 
 house-fly, and their light would wane in presence of their West Indian 
 cousins, which the natives carry in dry gourds, riddled with holes, 
 and which are so brilliant that a dozen of them act instead of a 
 lantern. 
 
 Returning to Galle, we found about two hundred people at the 
 hotel — passengers from half-a-dozen different ships bound for all 
 corners of the earth. The prospect of a noisy table-d' hote dinner 
 seemed too much out of keeping with our recent impressions, so we 
 preferred returning to our floating home. 
 
 Never can I forget the glory of the heavens that night and the 
 brilliancy of the stars, all of which were mirrored in the calm harbour, 
 which likewise glittered with gleaming reflections of many-coloured 
 lights on land and ships. The water seemed doubly still and dark 
 by contrast with the pallid white phosphorescence that played along
 
 AfV FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE TROPICS 21 
 
 the surface — sometimes in quivering tongues of fire, intensely bright, 
 dazzling like electric light, then fading away to reappear a moment 
 later in fitful ghostly gleams. It is a pulsating light, like that of the 
 pale lambent flame of the Aurora. So fascinating was this scene that 
 for hours we sat on deck watching it, sometimes shooting along the 
 water in coruscations of fire, sometimes just rippling into golden 
 sparkles like sea-stars ; following in the wake of every tiny boat, and 
 touching her sides with living flame, while each stroke of the oars 
 flashed fire, and each leaping fish scattered a starry spray. 
 
 Is it not wonderful to think of the myriads of luminous animal- 
 cules which must exist to produce these mysterious submarine illu- 
 minations ! I am told that they are of all colours, blue, white, and 
 green, and so tiny that it is calculated that fifty thousand would find 
 ample swimming space in a small wine-glass of water ! The com- 
 monest of these microscopic creatures is something like a tiny melon, 
 but their forms are very varied. 
 
 I had the good fortune once to travel in the same ship with a 
 naturalist possessed of an excellent microscope, and a very delightful 
 companion he proved, day by day conjuring up new marvels from the 
 exhaustless treasure-house of the deep. One small bucket did all the 
 work of his Lilliputian fisheries, and brought him a never-failing har- 
 vest of strange wonderful creatures, of which he then made most 
 faithful paintings, of course magnified a thousand-fold. But the tiny 
 prisoners resented having to sit for their portraits, and wriggled rest- 
 lessly till they attained to a nirvana of their own, and evaporated 
 altogether ! 
 
 At daybreak we again hailed one of those marvellous native out- 
 riggers, and, pointing to a bay of pure white sand, overshadowed to 
 the water's edge with cocoa-palms, made our brown brethren under- 
 stand that there we must go. As we neared the shore, and looked 
 down through the transparent depths of that lovely sea, we could 
 distinguish beautiful corals and strange water-plants. No 'dim 
 water- world ' is here, but a sea of crystal, revealing its treasures with 
 tantalising clearness, while each rippling wavelet cast its shadow on 
 the rocks and sand far below. 
 
 At last we reached the little bay, whose white coral sand was 
 thickly strewn with larger fragments of the same, as though flakes of 
 sea-foam had suddenly been petrified by some fairy touch. Of course 
 the charm of collecting these was irresistible. Soon we had heaped 
 up a little mountain of treasures .while our rowers looked on in much
 
 22 TJFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 amusement and tried to explain to us that it was altogether poor stuff 
 we had found. 
 
 Then from a hut on the tope came a kindly pleasant-looking 
 family, men, women, and boys, clothed in white raiment (as beseems 
 dwellers in Paradise), and laden with all manner of beautiful corals 
 brought up from the reef It was so early that their morning toilet 
 was incomplete, and the men's long silky hair floated on their 
 shoulders. 
 
 Some merry little brown natives swarmed up the cocoa-palms, 
 and threw us down young creamy nuts. It was very curious to watch 
 them run up and down the tall smooth stems, simply knotting a strip 
 of cloth round themselves and the tree, so as to give them a 'lean-to ' 
 for their back. Then, by sheer pressure of feet and hands and knees, 
 they worked their way up to the leafy crown. 
 
 The nuts selected for us were scarcely half ripe, so that the rind, 
 instead of being hard wood, as in the old nuts which are exported 
 to England and other distant lands, is still green like the shell of 
 an unripe walnut, and the inside coated with transparent cocoa-nut 
 jelly. Besides this, each nut contains a good tumblerful of sweet cool 
 water, a very different fluid from what we frnd in the old nuts that 
 reach England. Nevertheless, all new-comers ought to be warned 
 that this is a delicacy which does not suit all constitutions ; and 
 however refreshing a drink of young cocoa-nut milk may be, it is well 
 for the unacclimatised to partake sparingly. Happily, on the present 
 occasion none of the party suffered for their imprudence, although 
 we feasted freely, while sitting beneath the palms, which spread their 
 tender film of quivering foliage overhead, like the fairy web of some 
 great gossamer spider. 
 
 This, remember, was in December ; and as we revelled in the 
 soft blessed atmosphere, which made each breath we drew a sensation 
 of joy, and the mere fact of existence a delight, a vision rose before 
 us of how differently it fared with all at home — some on the moors, 
 perhaps, battling with storm and blinding sleet ; others in the murky 
 city. The very thought of mists and sleet, and of the many fireless 
 homes where wretched tattered beings shiver in squalid misery, jarred 
 too painfully ; so there was nothing for it but to try and forget Old 
 England altogether, and think only of the loveliness around us — land, 
 sea, and sky, each perfect in its beauty, and human beings who 
 seemed to us as gentle and gracious as they are graceful. 
 
 Near us rose a group of stately Areca palms, faultlessly upright,
 
 MY FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE TROPICS 23 
 
 like slender alabaster pillars, in this leafy sanctuary, each crowned 
 with such a capital of glossy green as human architect never devised. 
 But more beautiful in our eyes were the cocoa-palms bending in 
 every direction, each stem averaging from seventy to eighty feet in 
 height, and crowned with fronds far longer and more graceful than 
 those of the Areca, and with several large clusters of fruit in all 
 stages, the golden nuts hanging down, the younger, greener ones 
 above ; and, to crown all, two or three lovely blossoms, like gigantic 
 bunches of cream-coloured wheat carved in purest ivory, each long 
 wheat-head having at its base a small white ball, which is the embryo 
 nut. Each bunch numbers thirty or more of these heads, and about 
 eight or ten of the nuts come to perfection. The blossoms in their 
 infancy are enclosed in a hard sheath, which bursts when the flower 
 expands, and is then useful for many household purposes. I think 
 this grain- like blossom is one of the loveliest things in creation ; and 
 well do the chiefs know its value for all purposes of decoration, 
 resulting too often in lamentable waste of poor men's property. 
 
 The contrast of the graceful growth of the cocoa-palm (which 
 generally bends towards the nearest water) with the straight heaven- 
 ward growth of the Areca, is noted in a native proverb, which says 
 that he who can find a straight cocoa-palm, a crooked Areca, or a 
 white crow, shall never die. The Areca palm bears large clusters of 
 hard nuts — perhaps 200 on a tree — about the size and consistency of 
 nutmegs, which, like the cocoa-nut, are encased in an outer husk of 
 fibre. These are to these natives what tobacco is to the Briton, 
 especially in the form dear to our sailors, the nuts being cut into thin 
 hard slices, several of which, with the addition of a pinch of lime, are 
 wrapped up in a glossy leaf of the betel-pepper, forming a mouthful, 
 the chewing of which furnishes occupation for a long time, resulting 
 in free expectoration — if possible, even more disgusting than that of 
 a tobacco-chewer, from the fact that the saliva is blood-red. 
 
 We were sorely tempted to linger in this beautiful shady grove, 
 but a glimpse of a wooded hill beyond carried us onward ; so, taking 
 a couple of the young brownies to guide us along a slight native track, 
 we plunged into a jungle of exquisite tropical plants — the strange 
 screw-pine with its pillared roots, and scarlet pine-apples, dear only 
 to monkeys, glossy leaves and rough leaves in endless variety, old 
 forms and new, plants which we knew from pictures and from 
 description ; creepers and climbers of exceeding beauty, and in end- 
 less profusion,
 
 24 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Then, as we scrai"nl)led up the rough narrow path, there l)urst 
 upon us a scene of inconceivable beauty. On the one side we looked 
 over masses of vegetation and reddish cliffs to the bluest of blue seas, 
 edged with white surf. Beyond lay Point de Galle with its white 
 lighthouse. 
 
 On the other side the same blue sea, washing the long shore of 
 white sand ; then range beyond range of forest-clad hills, behind 
 which far-away blue peaks rose to a height of from six to seven 
 thousand feet. But, in truth, it is mere folly to attempt to describe 
 such a scene. No words or pictures can tell of the myriad beauties 
 which link all these divers parts into one perfect whole— the joyous 
 sunlit atmosphere and the restless repose of the calm azure sea, 
 enfolding a land beautiful beyond expression. 
 
 It was with many a lingering backward look, such as our first 
 parents are said to have cast on the same fair Isle ere they were 
 driven hence, that we at length tried to leave this Paradise ; and, 
 retracing our steps through the beautiful jungle, found ourselves once 
 more beneath the cocoa-palms, where our little brown friends awaited 
 us with stores of creamy half-ripe nuts and lovely corals, with which 
 our curious canoe was quickly laden. 
 
 A few hours later with exceeding regret we bade farewell to the 
 beautiful Isle of Palms, and with our little cabin half full of corals 
 and green love-birds, and sugar-cane to feed them with, we once 
 more held on our course, with a sadly diminished party, and many 
 stale jokes (scarcely jokes to a good many) about the said Point of 
 Ga//,^ and all its sorrowful partings from those whose paths lay 
 farther and farther towards China and Japan and the uttermost 
 isles. 
 
 1 The name of Galle is derived from the Singhalese ^rt//rt, a rock.
 
 25 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 COLOMBO 
 
 The native town — St. Thomas's College — The Fort — The lake — Suburbs — 
 White ants — Cinnamon Gardens. 
 
 About three years slipped away — years into which were crowded all 
 the marvellous interests of sight-seeing in India and elsewhere, and 
 of a first return to a wide and very sympathetic home-circle in the 
 old country. (Probably none save those to whom years have brought 
 home life's gravest lesson of many lifelong partings, can fully realise 
 how greatly the pleasure of wandering in far lands is enhanced by the 
 certainty of the interest and ever-ready sympathy with which letters 
 from the wanderer will be welcomed by loving kinsfolk beside their 
 own firesides, nor how much of the incentive to travel seems to pass 
 away when strangers fill the once familiar homes.) 
 
 So pleasant memories were the earnest of pleasant days to come, 
 when an invitation from the Bishop of Colombo tempted me to face 
 the wintry seas in bleak November, hoping possibly to reach Ceylon 
 by Christmas. But a week of wild storms in the English Channel, 
 and a very narrow escape of foundering off the Eddystone Rock, 
 resulted in our fine new steamer barely succeeding in making Ply- 
 mouth harbour, and her passengers explored the b auties of Cornwall 
 and Devon till another steamer was ready to take them on their 
 journey.^ 
 
 This eventful double voyage proved a time of lifelong interest to 
 several young couples on board, and indeed welded all our ship's 
 company into such general harmony and kindliness, that the 
 ' Hindoo-Othello ' passengers were thenceforward a recognised 
 brotherhood in Ceylon. Some, I fear, were heavy of heart when the 
 last evening came, and all lingered late in the starlight, enjoying the 
 delicious scent of jungle-flowers, which the balmy land-breeze brought 
 us as a greeting from the forests of Southern India. 
 
 I need scarcely say that as we nearcd the beautiful Isle, some of 
 
 1 See 'Via Cornwall to Egypt.' By C. F, Gordon Gumming. Published by 
 l^lessrs, Chatto & Windus,
 
 26 TIVO NAPPY YEA PS IN CEYLON 
 
 us were on deck with the earhest ghmmer of dawn, and were rewarded 
 by a glorious crimson and golden sky, long before the sunrise — a red 
 horizon against which Adam's Peak and the lower mountain-ranges 
 stood out sharp and clear in purple relief, just as plainly as I had 
 previously seen them from Galle, from which, indeed, the Peak is 
 about equidistant. 
 
 Soon after 7 a.m. we anchored in Colombo Roads (for the great 
 breakwater which has endowed Colombo with her present noble 
 harbour, is a creation of later date), and very quickly our steamer was 
 surrounded by wonderful native canoes of all sizes, and boats of 
 heavier build, bringing friends to meet the new-comers. Soon the 
 Bishop arrived himself, with the kindest of welcomes for me, and for 
 a pleasant new addition to his clerical staff, and a few minutes later 
 we were in a big boat, being rowed ashore by Tamil boatmen, who 
 cheered their toil by singing wild songs with wilder refrain to the 
 accompaniment of plashing oars, reminding me of the Gaelic songs 
 of the Skye boatmen. 
 
 The Bishop's carriage awaited us at the landing-place. Here, as 
 in India, each horse is accompanied by its own horsekeeper, lightly 
 dressed, and barefooted, but with large scarlet turban and sash, for 
 in Ceylon these men are all Tamils. Whatever be the distance and 
 whatever the pace, they pride themselves on running abreast of the 
 horses, ready to help in any emergency, and shouting to secure a 
 clear way through the crowded streets. 
 
 We had good need of their services, for our way lay through the 
 Pettah, or native town, thronged by an ever- fascinating kaleidoscope 
 of infinitely varied human beings, all picturesque, forming a succes- 
 sion of groups of living bronzes, each a study for an artist. Only, 
 alas ! even the very first close glimpse of these revealed that suffering 
 has a footing in Paradise, for we saw a van full of semi-nude lunatics 
 from the asylum taking a morning drive, and several poor creatures 
 with limbs swollen and distorted with elephantiasis, and (more painful 
 still, because caused by human callousness, though the charge of 
 deliberate cruelty is repudiated) we were sickened by the sight of the 
 pretty little bullocks, drawing the native carts, all alike covered with 
 most elaborate patterns of curls and curves like intricate Runic 
 knotting, either branded or cut in narrow strips right into the hide. 
 When the scars have healed, they produce a result as beautiful in 
 native eyes as are in their own sight somewhat similar scars on the 
 bodies of various savage tribes.
 
 COLOMBO 27 
 
 But to see the poor beasts who have recently undergone this 
 process, Hterally covered with these carefully manufactured raws, 
 in many cases festering and a prey to clouds of flies, is simply 
 revolting. In defence of so cruel a practice the owners of the 
 bullocks maintain that not only is this a preventive of cattle-steal- 
 ing, but also a safeguard against rheumatism. It has even been 
 asserted that in some cases animals have been * hide-bound ' and 
 never could be induced to fatten till their hides had been thus 
 destroyed. 
 
 Were it not for this detail, these pretty little zebus, with their 
 humped neck and deep dewlap, their silky skin and slender limbs, 
 are very attractive. The majority are black, but many are silvery 
 grey. In lieu of reins and a bit, a hole is bored through the nostril, 
 and the poor beasts are guided by a rope passed through the nose. 
 Some are very fast trotters, and native gentlemen drive them at a 
 rattling pace in small hackeries. Larger palm-thatched carts or 
 ' bullock-bandys,' but similarly balanced on two wheels, are used for 
 general traffic. We passed some of these full of women and children, 
 all brown and black-haired and black-eyed, and all smiling and 
 chattering, and glittering with jewellery and gay with coloured 
 draperies. The driver of the bullocks stalks along between them and 
 the cart, tall, brown, and black-bearded, with little clothing, carrying 
 a cane for the encouragement of his good cattle. One marvels 
 how these active little creatures can draw such heavy weights simply 
 by the pressure of the wide projecting yoke against the hump on 
 their necks. For heavier traffic larger-humped cattle have been 
 imported from India, and Ceylon itself supplies a stronger variety of 
 bullocks of a dark-red colour. 
 
 Old residents, as a rule, rather dislike having to drive through 
 this or any other native town, but to me it was always a pleasure, as 
 each moment revealed some thoroughly Eastern scene ; and though 
 the houses are for the most part dingy and very poor, chiefly built of 
 mud or bamboos, and roofed with wooden shingles or dry palm- 
 leaves, yet in this brilliant sunlight they give depths of rich -brown 
 shadow as a background to many a bit of sparkling colour ; and then 
 the fact of their being all open and revealing all manner of domestic 
 incidents in the home-life of races so widely different as Moors and 
 Malays, Singhalese and Tamils, Dutch and Portuguese burghers, is 
 full of interest to a new-comer. Many of the simple toilets are per- 
 formed in the open street, especially the work of the Tamil barber,
 
 28 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 who squats on his feet facing his victim, who hkewise squats with his 
 head resting on his own knees, while the barber shaves it till it shines 
 like a billiard-ball. It is so funny to see quite small boys being thus 
 shaven ! 
 
 All the shops are likewise open, with their varied goods — piles of 
 brass lotas, and earthenware chatties, gay cheap cottons, fish of 
 strange form and vivid colour, beside the familiar whiting, mullet, and 
 soles. One which we soon learnt to appreciate is the seer-fish, which 
 is rather like salmon, but with white flesh. Of course the vegetable 
 stalls are attractive, but especially so the bewildering variety of 
 tempting fruits, looking only too inviting as laid out in piles on cool, 
 green banana leaves, — large luscious pine-apples, heaps of very 
 bright-green ripe oranges, golden mangoes, custard apples, melons, 
 fine gourds and splendid pumpkins, pumeloes {i.e. shaddocks), 
 limes, guavas, bananas, papaws, lovi-lovis, durians, rambutans, 
 bullocks'-hearts, sour-sops, sometimes even figs and grapes — why, 
 these alone were an earnest of Paradise to one who had so re- 
 cently escaped from a stormy winter in England ! One fruit new 
 to me, and very insinuating, was the rambutan. When ripe its 
 rough skin changes from green to rich scarlet, and within lies a 
 ball of cool, pleasant jelly, very refreshing. A hard uneatable 
 kernel lies in the centre. Another very attractive little fruit, with 
 most fragrant blossom, was the loquat, which belongs to the medlar 
 family. 
 
 Some of the best shops in the Pettah are kept by Parsees and 
 Moormen, who retail all manner of European goods ; but a really 
 Eastern stall is that of the money-changer, who sits on his mat amid 
 heaps of copper and silver coin. So is that of the grain-seller, the 
 chettie from Southern India, with his large turban and enormous 
 ear-rings. The carrier of drinking water is also characteristic. So is 
 the earthenware chattie, painted white and stuck on the roof to 
 attract the glance of the passer-by, and so lessen the danger of the 
 evil eye. 
 
 We passed Buddhist and Hindoo temples and Mohammedan 
 mosques, but the latter seemed poor and insignificant as compared 
 with those of India, which remained so vividly impressed on my 
 memory. But presently our route lay through a grove of beautiful 
 cocoa-palms, beside the blue sea, and no odious mental comparisons 
 marred the loveliness of that scene. Our destination was St. Thomas's 
 College, in Mutwal, the north-eastern suburb of the city, distant
 
 COLOMBO 29 
 
 about two miles from the Fort, which is the great business centre. 
 The College stands in the same compound,^ or grounds, as Christ 
 Church Cathedral, which is primarily the chapel of the college and 
 collegiate school, founded in 1852 by Dr. Chapman, the first Bishop 
 of Colombo (Ceylon having previously been included in the see of 
 Madras). It is also, however, the parish church of a large English 
 and English-speaking community, as also of the Singhalese Chris- 
 tians in Mutwal. 
 
 Between the Cathedral and the College stands the Bishop's 
 house,^ where two large airy rooms were assigned to me, opening on 
 to a wide pleasant verandah supported by columns, the whole coated 
 with cool white chunam, and embowered in a luxuriant growth of 
 flowering creepers of all gorgeous colours — scarlet and crimson, 
 purple, orange, and vivid blue. Moreover, there were comparatively 
 few days when we were not blessed with a delicious sea-breeze ; 
 and, indeed, though the deep -blue ocean itself was well-nigh hidden 
 from us by waving palms and great India-rubber and other trees, 
 we had only to descend a few hundred yards to find ourselves on 
 its beautiful beach, where, no matter how calm the day, the great 
 green rollers break in glittering surf on the yellow sands or dark 
 rocks. 
 
 To a new-comer it is inconceivable that any one could ever weary 
 of such delicious balmy air and luxuriant vegetation. And yet one 
 home-sick Briton expressed the thought of many when he told me 
 that he would give all the lovely tropical scenery for the sight of a 
 good honest turnip-field, while another only craved for ' a good 
 healthy shiver.' 
 
 St. Thomas's College receives about 60 boarders, and the 
 collegiate school has an average daily attendance of about 250 lads 
 and young men, some of whom are pure Singhalese or Tamil, others 
 are members of burgher famihes — i.e. descendants of early Dutch or 
 Portuguese colonists — while a considerable number are half-castes. 
 Almost all the boarders and about four-fifths of the students are 
 Christians, the proportion in 1890 being 260 Christian and 43 non- 
 Christian pupils. Of the latter, some are Buddhists and some 
 Hindoos, who accept the inevitable Christian instruction for the sake 
 of the first-class secular education here given. A very well-supported 
 cricket club, a workshop with forge and lathe, and a Natural History 
 
 ^ From the Portuguese cainpao, an enclosure. 
 
 '^ This has been given over by the present Bishop to the Warden of the College.
 
 30 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Society, are among the details which suggest the varied interests of 
 l)oy-Hfe. 
 
 A high-class school for girls occupies a pretty bungalow close to 
 the Cathedral. 
 
 Another very important centre of education is the Royal 
 College, which was founded in 1836 by Sir Robert Horton, for the 
 higher education of natives of the Isle. In August 1891 its students 
 numbered 331, while those at St. Thomas's numbered 333 — a state 
 of things highly creditable to the latter, inasmuch as the former is a 
 Government college, backed by public revenue. A generous rivalry 
 exists between these two colleges and those of India, those of Ceylon 
 securing a full share of honours in regard to English university 
 scholarships and Cambridge local examinations ; so there is no lack 
 of healthy emulation to keep up the standard of learning. 
 
 St. Thomas's College supplies choristers with very pleasant voices, 
 for the daily morning and evening choral services in the Cathedral, 
 where the week-day congregation consists chiefly of young men from 
 the College, who look delightfully cool in their white jackets and 
 comboys, the Singhalese lads being readily distinguished by their 
 tortoise-shell combs. 
 
 In connection with the Cathedral is a mission for the training of 
 native clergy— Tamil and Singhalese — to whom are apportioned 
 various districts of Colombo, in which they minister to their own 
 fellow-countrymen, and to the hitherto neglected Portuguese half- 
 castes and other classes. 
 
 Certainly no one here can plead lack of opportunity as an excuse 
 for non-attendance at church services. Besides several Episcopal 
 churches, there are Roman Catholic, Wesleyan, Presbyterian, Dutch 
 Presbyterian, Baptist, and sundry other churches and chapels 
 scattered over the town, and these (in addition to the services for the 
 English-speaking community) have others in Tamil, Singhalese, and 
 Portuguese, at such hours as may best suit domestic servants and 
 others. 
 
 Notwithstanding his own incessant work, the Bishop most kindly 
 arranged that I should accompany him on so many beautiful drives 
 in the freshness of early morning, or the cool of the evening, that I 
 very soon became tolerably familiar with the immediate neighbour- 
 hood and its inhabitants, feeling daily more attracted towards these 
 gentle Singhalese, who seem always so quietly happy, always so polite, 
 crossing their arms, and bowing so courteously, apparently never ex-
 
 COLOMBO 31 
 
 cited even when marketing — the fruitful source of Oriental clatter ! 
 ' Even the pretty graceful children play gently, noisy romping seeming 
 altogether foreign to their nature. The girls (poor little dears !) are 
 early taught to stay chiefly indoors, and by twelve years of age they 
 are generally married, and occasionally are grandmothers before they 
 are thirty ! They certainly are a very comely race, with their slender 
 figure, shapely well-chiselled features, and splendid dark dreamy 
 eyes. 
 
 Their homes seem to be the perfection of village life ; each pic- 
 turesque bamboo hut, with its thatch of cocoa-nut leaves, wholly 
 concealed from its neighbours by the richest vegetation, and buried 
 in cool shade of large-leaved plantains and bread-fruit trees ; while 
 above each little homestead waves the beneficent tree which supplies 
 the family with meat and drink, and a thousand things besides. 
 
 Certainly, clean as these mud and wattle huts are, some 
 fastidious people might object to the fact that the raised platforms of 
 clay whereon the villagers lie basking in their happy doke far niente 
 (enjoying a foretaste of Buddha's Paradise) are all plastered with 
 cow-dung, which is said to keep away vermin, and to be less apt to 
 become muddy in the rains than is a simple clay floor. 
 
 Here, beneath the palm thatch, the men spread their palm-leaf 
 mats and sleep peacefully, wrapped in their white cloth, till sunrise 
 awakens the birds. Then they bathe in the nearest stream, and wash 
 their long glossy black hair, and for the next hour or two sit in the 
 sunlight combing and drying it, and (alas !) renewing its gloss with 
 unfragrant cocoa-nut oil. Then they carefully twist it into a smooth 
 coil, fasten it with a circular tortoise-shell comb, and then rest again, 
 perhaps weaving fanciful ornaments of split palm-leaf to decorate the 
 entrance to the home, but certainly chewing the inevitable betel-leaf. 
 
 Meanwhile their wives are busy with the daily task of preparing 
 curry — no fiery curry-powder, but a delicious compound of many 
 pleasant vegetables, seasoned with pepper, turmeric, green ginger, 
 chillies, &c., but above all, made fresh and wholly different every 
 morning, and served with cocoa-nut, prawns, cucumbers, and all 
 manner of other excellent dainties, served in different dishes, as we 
 serve vegetables, forming combinations to rejoice the heart of an 
 epicure. The principal glory of a Singhalese cook lies in the endless 
 variety of his curries ; a very desirable characteristic in a dish which 
 forms a necessary conclusion to every meal, and on which you soon 
 learn to count as a necessity. Every man, woman, and child, down
 
 •32 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 to the very smallest, lives on curry and rice, indeed we had a theory 
 that all domestic animals were fed on it. ' To eat rice ' is the recog- ' 
 nised form of describing every meal, and wonderful is the amount 
 consumed by each individual. 
 
 The practice I have already alluded to, of chewing betel, which is 
 practised both by Tamils and -Singhalese, is most obnoxious to the 
 spectator, as it is accompanied by continual spitting of dark-red 
 juice, which gives you the impression that the whole population are 
 in the last stage of consumption, and that the ground on every side 
 is stained with blood. It is truly disgusting ! and is continually 
 forcing itself on one's observation, which must plead my excuse for 
 referring to it again. 
 
 The betel-leaf is rather like ivy, but more fleshy and glossy. In 
 it the people wrap up a mixture of bits of hard areca-nut, and lime 
 of burnt shells to give pungency. It discolours the mouth for the 
 moment, and an habitual chewer is betrayed by the deep reddish- 
 orange stain which has become chronic. Men and women alike 
 seem to delight in this delicacy, though I never met a European who 
 could endure it. However, it seems to be a wise instinct which 
 teaches these vegetarians to consume so much lime, and it is said 
 that the perpetual chewing of betel compensates for the deficiency of 
 animal diet. 
 
 Of course to the passer-by these simple homes derive much oi 
 their charm from their surroundings, for the poorest is always 
 embowered in sugar-cane, maize, or bananas ; and I know no plant 
 which so fully brings home to one the sense of tropical luxuriance as 
 does each member of this widespread tribe of bananas and plantains, 
 which contribute so largely to the food of the human race in all 
 tropical countries. In one year it grows to a height of about 20 feet, 
 each leaf being from 6 to 8 feet in length by about 2 in breadth, and 
 each plant bearing perhaps a total of three hundred fruits in several 
 heavy drooping clusters — green, ripening to gold — a total of about 
 seventy pounds weight. Each fruit is enfolded in a thick leathery 
 skin, which comes off at a touch, yielding a sweet satisfying food of 
 most delicate flavour, of which the bananas sold in England give a 
 very faint idea. The effort of producing such a mass of fruit exhausts 
 the generous plant, which then falls, leaving its strong fibrous stem 
 and leaf-stalks to be turned to account in various ways. (One variety 
 yields the fibre known as Manilla hemp.) Then new stems very 
 quickly spring from the old root, and the splendid plant is renewed.
 
 COLOMBO 33 
 
 To the same family belongs the huge fan-shaped ' Traveller's 
 ' Tree,' • often carelessly described as a palm. It bears the same long 
 broad leaves \ but they are stiffly arranged, exactly like a great 
 feather fan, and instead of bearing nourishing fruit like the common 
 banana,^ they collect water, which filters into the tightly plaited 
 sheaths at the base of the leaves, whence a drink of pure water can 
 always be drawn by stabbing the said base of a leaf. 
 
 The country all round Colombo is strangely level, and the soil is 
 of a warm red colour. The red roads contrast curiously with the 
 vividly green rice-fields and the luxuriant vegetation on every side. 
 
 Even the red streets are delightfully shaded by cool green Suriya, 
 or sun-trees, so named on account of their delicate primrose-coloured 
 blossoms, with claret-coloured heart, which, like the setting sun, turn 
 red as they fade. (One of the titles of the ancient royal race was 
 Snriya-wa?izae, the race of the sun.) The flower curiously resembles 
 that of the cotton plant, and also in form that of the single scarlet 
 hibiscus, known to Europeans as the shoe-flower ; but its grey-green 
 leaves are totally different, rather resembling those of a poplar. 
 Hence Linnoeus named this tree Hibiscus populneus, but modern 
 botanists have reclassed it as Thespesia popidnea. As an everyday 
 name, surely nothing could be more appropriate than Suriya ; but 
 Europeans generally speak of them as tulip-trees, from a very 
 imaginary resemblance of the blossom to that familiar but less refined 
 flower. Certainly it is in every respect unlike the true tulip-tree of 
 North America.^ 
 
 To me the Suriya recalls pleasant visions of the South Pacific 
 isles, where it grows abundantly. In Fiji it is called the Vau,'^ and is 
 greatly prized on account of the fibre of the inner bark, which is 
 used by the fisher-folk for making turtle-nets, and also, when dyed of 
 various colours, for making fringe-kilts. It is a most cheery little 
 tree, always covered with sunny blossoms. Here its light hard- 
 grained wood is prized for carriage-building and for gun-stocks. 
 Like many other flowering trees which are widely spread over Ceylon, 
 it is doubtful whether the Suriya is indigenous, though it has been 
 found near Batticaloa apparently wild. 
 
 Both Galle and Colombo are indebted to the Dutch for these 
 
 ^ Ravenala madagascariensis. ^ Musa sapienium. 
 
 ' Liriodendron tulipifcra. 
 
 * ' At Home in Fiji," vol. i. p. 83. By C. F. Gordon Gumming. Published by W. 
 Blackwood & Sons.
 
 34 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 pleasant avenues, which transform their busiest business streets into 
 cool boulevards. The new-comer on first landing derives from them 
 his very earliest impression of green shade as he passes from the 
 harbour to the Fort, which is the chief business centre — Queen's 
 House (as the Governor's residence is here called), the Government 
 offices, and the principal European shops being all within its haunts, 
 which comprise about two square miles. 
 
 The fortifications crown a rocky headland between the sea and 
 the large lake. On the land side there are four bastions, and gates 
 with drawbridges, and seven batteries guard the seaward approach. 
 The Fort was commenced by the Portuguese in a.d. 15 i8. The 
 Dutch did not appear on the scene till 1602, and when in 1655 they 
 besieged this Fort, it was accounted one of the largest and strongest 
 fortresses in the East, the circuit of its walls being nearly three 
 quarters of a mile, while it was protected on one side by the sea, and 
 on the other by the lake, which was then well stocked with man- 
 devouring crocodiles. 
 
 So much reliance seems to have been placed on these natural 
 advantages, that cocoa-palms had actually been planted on the 
 fortifications ; and though these were mounted by 237 cannons, 
 their carriages were literally rotten from neglect, and in the hour of 
 need had to be renewed with wood taken from shattered houses, and 
 even from the churches. Moreover, so many buildings of all sorts 
 were crowded within the walls, that it was simply a small enclosed 
 town with a population of about 4,000 persons, of whom only 
 about 1,200 were capable of bearing arms, the majority of these being 
 half-castes. 
 
 On the approach of the Dutch, assisted by the troops of the King 
 of Kandy, ' the priests of the seven parishes of Colombo, accom- 
 panied by their terrified flocks, sought shelter from the advancing 
 heretics within the walls.' Its population was trebled, and then it 
 was necessary to close the gates and refuse admission to any more 
 fugitives. Then followed a prolonged siege, full of thrilling deeds of 
 valour and hand-to-hand fighting. Probably the whole page of history 
 contains no record more full of the terrible 'romance' of war. Every 
 man within the Fort was fighting for dear life, for the King of Kandy 
 had stipulated that every native captured within the Fort should be 
 given over to him, that he might punish them as he had done those 
 captured at Batticaloa, on which occasion he had impaled fifty living 
 men, and had sold the rest with their wives and children to be slaves.
 
 COLOMBO 35 
 
 This fate likewise befell such fishermen as were captured attempting 
 to run the blockade and carry provisions to the besieged. As the 
 siege advanced and provisions became scarcer, many natives attempted 
 to escape, but all were ruthlessly driven back with whips, to add to 
 the embarrassment of the besieged. And yet in the face of such 
 horrors the Portuguese were weakened by internal strife, when blue- 
 blooded hidalgos occasionally refused to obey the orders of their 
 half-breed superior officers. 
 
 For seven long months the siege continued, all on both sides 
 being on the alert day and night. It is recorded of the aged 
 Governor that during all that time he w^as never seen without his 
 armour. Even the Jesuit fathers and the Augustines donned armour 
 and defended the ramparts or fought in the trenches, leaving the 
 care of the sick and wounded to the Dominicans, Capuchins, and 
 Cordeliers. Their zeal was intensified by a sacrilegious act of the 
 Dutch, who, having taken an image of St. Thomas from its altar 
 in a church beside the sea, had cut off its nose, ears, and arms, 
 driven nails into it, and finally fired it from a mortar into the ForL 
 It fell into the ditch, whence it was rescued by the Portuguese at the 
 peril of their lives, and carried in solemn procession to a place of 
 honour on the high altar of the Church of the Cordeliers. 
 
 At the beginning of the siege there were fifteen elephants and 
 many buffaloes within the Fort. One of the former was so very 
 valuable as a catcher of wild elephants (having annually captured 
 about thirty, valued at fifteen thousand crowns), that, although owing 
 to prolonged drought there was not a green herb within the Fort, it 
 was somehow kept alive to the end of the siege, w^hen it became a 
 prize for the Dutch. But every other living creature, down to cats, 
 rats, and dogs, was devoured, and wretched living skeletons 
 subsisted on a daily handful of rice, till pestilence in the form of 
 fever, dysentery, and a disease called beri-beri, of the nature of dropsy, 
 broke out and thinned their ranks. Soldiers dropped dead on the 
 ramparts from sheer exhaustion, and in one day 130 bodies were 
 buried, search parties going through the houses to carry out the dead. 
 This during intense heat, aggravated by months without a drop of 
 rain. Happily, however, the wells never dried up, and the besieged 
 were spared the anguish of insufficient water. Nevertheless the 
 recorded details of anguish during those terrible months are altogether 
 sickening. 
 
 As the position became more and more intolerable many 
 
 £) 2
 
 36 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 contrived to desert, though all who were caught were promptly 
 hanged ; a considerable number succeeded in swimming across the 
 lake at night, preferring the risk of being devoured by crocodiles to 
 the certain torture of starvation. 
 
 In the last extremity of famine, the Portuguese drove out all the 
 surviving starving natives, and closed the Fort gates after them. The 
 Dutch refused to let them pass. Thus they were hemmed in 
 between the belligerents, and the whole party perished either from 
 starvation or bullet wounds. 
 
 In all history there is no more thrilling page than the story of 
 this siege, with its daily hand-to-hand fights between the gaunt 
 living skeletons who held the Fort, and their assailants. At last one 
 morning at daybreak the Dutch carried all the outworks, and only 
 the bastion of St. John remained between them and the Fort. Of all 
 its defenders there survived only one brave captain and two boys. 
 These were soon cut down, and the besiegers having captured the 
 bastion, poured down on the Fort, supported by a strong body of 
 Singhalese archers. Every man who was not utterly disabled, 
 including almost all the priests, rushed to the defence, fighting with 
 the desperation of men in their last extremity. 
 
 That handful of brave men, faint from starvation and exhaustion, 
 held their ground the livelong day against a vastly superior force of 
 well-fed Dutch and Kandyan troops ; the fighting was almost all 
 hand-to-hand, with swords and pistols and hand-grenades, and 
 continued till the darkness compelled a truce. 
 
 The dead and wounded of both sides lay heaped together in 
 ghastly piles. Among the slain was the brave Father Antonio Nunes, 
 who early in the day was struck by a musket-ball, but, still fighting 
 on, presently received a severe sword-cut. Triumphant over pain, 
 the undaunted warrior-priest still held his ground, till he was killed 
 by the explosion of a hand-grenade. But in that force each warrior 
 was a hero. 
 
 It was evident that to prolong the struggle was hopeless, so, 
 though some still voted for no surrender, honourable terms of 
 capitulation were at last agreed on. The Dutch general undertook 
 to protect all the inhabitants of the Fort, especially the women, and 
 to care for all the sick and wounded ; also to convey all soldiers and 
 officers to Europe, or other Portuguese settlements ; and on May 12, 
 1656, the garrison, consisting of 190 Portuguese soldiers and armed 
 civilians, marched out with all the honours of war— a ghastly proces-
 
 COLOMBO 37 
 
 sion of" livinii; skeletons, uumy of whom were scaicely able to totter 
 on their [)Oor legs, swollen by bcri-beri, and almost every man disabled 
 by wounds or burning by gunpowder. Even the Dutch could not 
 restrain their pity and admiration of this band of heroes. 
 
 The priests, however, fearing with good reason that protection 
 would not be extended to their sacred relics, images, and consecrated 
 vessels, hastened to conceal these, and to unfurnish all altars in the 
 churches, lest they should be profaned by the heretics who had dealt 
 so cruelly with the image of St. Thomas. 
 
 When the Fort had thus been evacuated by its defenders, the 
 Dutch marched in, and the standard of the Prince of Orange was 
 planted on the Water Fort, a dearly bought prize, said to have cost 
 the Dutch the lives of upwards of three thousand soldiers, besides 
 many of their bravest officers, and an enormous outlay in money. 
 It proved, however, the key to mastery on the Isle, the Portuguese 
 being soon afterwards compelled to cede all their possessions. 
 
 They held the Fort of Colombo till February 1796, when in their 
 turn they were besieged by the British, and capitulated after a very 
 much feebler resistance, with few such thrilling incidents as those 
 which formed the everyday history of the seven months' siege. 
 
 Finally, in 1869, the walls of the Fort were demolished by its 
 present masters. 
 
 As we have seen, during the Portuguese occupation no less than 
 five religious orders were established within the Fort — namely, the 
 Jesuits, Augustines, Dominicans, Cordeliers, and Capuchins, each 
 having its separate monastery and chapel. Of their hospitals, 
 colleges, and monasteries no trace remains, but an interesting 
 memorial of that period was discovered about fifty years ago, when, 
 in carrying out some repairs near the Battenburgh bastion, a large 
 stone was discovered, with an inscription stating that beneath it lay 
 the body of Juan Monteiro, the fust primate of Ceylon, who died here 
 A.D. 1536. 
 
 The city of Colombo covers a very large area, its various suburbs 
 being separated by cocoa-palm groves, amongst which the houses of 
 the wealthier inhabitants stand apart, each in its own large garden ; 
 many are scattered about all through the wide semi-jungle, still known 
 as the Cinnamon Gardens, and many more are dotted all along the 
 shores of the freshwater lake, which ramifies in so many directions 
 that one keeps coming to it again and again, but never too often, for 
 each fresh glimpse shows some new combination of luxuriant foliage,
 
 38 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 and most carefully cultivated flowering trees and shrubs. Some such 
 groups form memory-jMctures of delight — as, for instance, in the 
 months of April and May, the Flamboyant {Poinciana regia), with its 
 indescribably gorgeous masses of scarlet and golden blossom and 
 delicate velvety green foliage. Or the splendid drooping clusters, 
 also scarlet and yellow, of the Amherstia nobilis, which blooms all 
 the year, though most glorious from Christmas to Easter. These 
 relieved by the lovely lemon-yellow of the ' lettuce ' tree, which 
 gleams like embodied sunlight, contrasting with the blue-green 
 of the screw-pine and the dark casurina, or the feathery misty 
 foliage of clumps of tall graceful bamboo, all in perfect harmony 
 with the soft pearly grey of the sky, and all reflected in the still 
 lake. 
 
 Here and there are dark hibiscus all aglow with crimson blossom, 
 or long pendant boughs of poinsettia, with gorgeous scarlet rosettes 
 of young foliage in wondrous contrast with the rich green of the 
 older leaves, splendid yellow allamandas, cassias loaded with blossom 
 like our richest laburnum, ironwood {Mesua ferred) with fragrant 
 large white blossoms and tufts of young bright crimson foliage, 
 jaggery, areca, talipot, and date palms, palmyra palms with their great 
 fan-like leaves ceaselessly rustling with every breath of air, the ever- 
 quivering fronds of the cocoa-palm glancing in the sunlight, like 
 gleaming swords, and, most restless of all, the huge leaves of the 
 banana ever waving — the young leaves like lovely ribbed silk of the 
 most exquisite green, the older leaves torn by their own ceaseless 
 motion into fluttering yellow ribbons. 
 
 One of these very attractive ' lake districts ' still bears the un- 
 pleasant name of Slave Island, recalling the days when, under 
 Dutch rule, the State slaves were there imprisoned every night, a 
 prey to the mosquitos, which, alas ! abound in this warm moist 
 neighbourhood, and but for skilfully arranged mosquito-nets, effectu- 
 ally murder sleep. Their hateful note ' ping ' comes in as a shrill 
 treble to the ceaseless chorus of multitudinous frogs, some of which 
 are literally seven or eight inches in length, so it is no wonder that 
 they produce a good deal of croaking ! In colour they are of a rich 
 olive, shading into brown on the back, and yellow on the under side. 
 Even the pretty little green or yellowish tree-frogs add their sharp 
 shrill cries to the concert. 
 
 This labyrinthine lagoon has a special interest in this Isle, which, 
 strange to say, possesses no natural lakes. Those in the interior
 
 COLOMBO 39 
 
 are all of artificial construction, and this is one of that very singular 
 chain of lagoons (so apparent by a glance at the map) which lie 
 parallel with the sea along so great a portion of Ceylon, both on 
 the east and west coast — lagoons formed at the mouth of many 
 rivers by their own deposit of sand, which thus chokes the original 
 exit, and forces the stream to meander about in search of a new 
 passage. Thus the beautiful Kelani river, which now enters the 
 sea at Mutwal, fully three miles to the north, is believed to have 
 formerly done so here, and to have given its name to the city, which 
 was originally known as Kalan-totta, 'theKalany Ferry.' This name 
 was changed by the Moors to Kalambu ; and the Moorish traveller 
 Ibn Batuta, who devoted twenty-eight years to visiting all sacred 
 Mohammedan shrines, and who in a.d. 1347 came to Ceylon to do 
 homage to Adam's Footprint, describes this as 'the finest and largest 
 city in Serendib.' But when the Portuguese established themselves 
 here in a.d. 151 7, they further altered the name in honour of 
 Columbus ; hence its present form. 
 
 Happily the charming lake remains, with all its pleasant boating, 
 and a fine carriage-road winds round each curve of its very irregular 
 shore-line, forming a delightful drive. The ' Galle Face ' (the most 
 delightful of esplanades) lies between its still waters on the one hand, 
 and on the other, the thundering surf of the Indian Ocean. This, 
 the 'Routine Row' of Colombo, derives its name from being 
 the first of the seventy miles of beautiful driving-road along the 
 sea-coast to Galle. It is the only mile not embowered in trees, 
 and is a strip of grass-land too much haunted by burrowing 
 crabs to be absolutely safe riding-ground, but which nevertheless 
 answers the purpose for the daily evening meeting (and even for the 
 annual races, as^e are reminded by a circular race-stand in the 
 centre. For these, however, a better site is now proposed). Car- 
 riages drive up and down a broad red road close to the great green 
 waves. 
 
 The fashionable hour for this daily routine is from five to seven, 
 and as Ceylon is so near the equator that the sun sets all the .year 
 round at about six o'clock, every one gets the full benefit of the, 
 ever-changing sunset glories, and magnificent they sometimes are 
 during the stormy monsoons. So brief is the twilight that often 
 before seven it is quite dark, and carriage-lamps must be lighted ; 
 but on the other hand, sometimes after a brief interval, an afterglow 
 commences which lights up the sky with colours more beautiful than
 
 40 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 that of the sunset itself. The actual variation of sunrise and sunset 
 ranges from about 5.45 a.m. in August to about 6.23 a.m. in February, 
 and from 6.7 p.:\i. in August to 6.5 p.m. in February. Even at Galle, 
 in the far south of the Isle, the difference between the longest and 
 shortest days is only forty-one minutes. 
 
 Time is 5 hours, 19 minutes, 28 seconds ahead of Greenwich, so 
 it is about noon in Colombo when England is only half awake. 
 
 Another thing worthy of note is the singularly slight variation in 
 the tides, the rise and fall of which rarely exceed three feet. 
 
 An interesting peculiarity of the coasts of Ceylon is the fre- 
 quency of water-spouts as forerunners of the monsoons. They 
 rise from the shallow lagoons, or from the sea along the coast, taking 
 the form of a rotatory inverted cone, with a dark umbrella-shaped 
 top of fine spray. Several of these gently sportive water-whirlwinds 
 are sometimes seen from the shore in the course of a day, but they 
 never seem to do any damage. 
 
 Speaking of variable natural phenomena, I must just mention 
 the weather, concerning which it seems to me impossible in Ceylon 
 to speak of ' dry ' or ' rainy ' seasons as in India, for the rainfall 
 varies so greatly in different districts, that when one part of the Isle 
 is being parched, another is being saturated. Sometimes when we 
 were in dry low-country districts, gasping for cool air, and all the 
 farmers and villagers craving for rain, our friends in some of the 
 coffee districts were being nearly drowned by the incessant deluge 
 pitilessly pouring on them day after day and week after week, threaten- 
 ing to wash all the soil from the rocky mountain sides, and to float 
 them and their crop right down to the sea, 
 
 Roughly, the south-west monsoon is supposed to commence at 
 Colombo — i.e. on the south-west coast — about the end of April ; 
 and the north-east monsoon (which sweeps the east coast and the 
 north, right up to Jaffna) is due at the end of October. A small 
 burst, called the ' little monsoon,' precedes the full downpouring of 
 the clouds. 
 
 It is during the north-east monsoon, which generally includes 
 Christmas, that the pleasant but very treacherous land wind or 
 ' along-shore ' wind, as it is called, prevails, bringing colds and fever 
 and all manner of evils. Here most emphatically is ' the wind from 
 the east,' bad alike for man and beast. Happily it is limited to the 
 winter months ; during the other nine, Colombo is greatly favoured 
 with westerly sea-breezes.
 
 COLOMBO 41 
 
 Due consideration of these general laws will enable a traveller 
 to avoid the heaviest rainfall on either coast ; but as regards the 
 mountain districts, one might as well calculate on weather in Scotland, 
 for sometimes while one side of a dividing range is revelling in sun- 
 shine, the other is being deluged. 
 
 It is said that whereas the rainfall of Great Britain ranges from a 
 minimum of 22 inches to a maximum of 70 inches, the minimum in 
 Ceylon is 70, and the maximum exceeds 200 inches. But it all falls 
 in from 100 to 200 days per annum, in the intervals of blazing sun- 
 shine. 
 
 Just beyond Galle Face lies Colpetty (or, as it is now spelt, Kol- 
 lupitiya), one of the most delightful suburbs of Colombo, but all 
 around the grassy shores of the beautiful lake (and indeed in every 
 direction) are scattered the pleasant homes of the residents in this 
 favoured Isle. 
 
 The majority of these are all of the bungalow type — i.e. only one 
 storey high, built of stone or brick, and with the roof very high- 
 pitched, both on account of the heat retained by the tiles and to 
 throw oif heavy rain. Thus much ventilation is secured, as inside, 
 instead of a ceiling, there is only a tightly stretched white cloth ; so 
 the whole space within the roof is a reservoir for air — an attic where- 
 in rats and rat-snakes dwell in anything but love, and often a great 
 wobble and commotion overhead tells of a battle a outra7ice. But 
 that canvas is the playground for many creatures, whose tiny feet 
 you see running along. Thatch being prohibited in towns for 
 fear of fire, the majority of these houses are roofed with round 
 half-tiles, laid alternately so as to fit into one another and throw off 
 rain. 
 
 Every house is surrounded by a wide verandah, supported by a 
 row of white pillars which in the older bungalows resemble creamy- 
 white marble. This beautiful polished surface was produced by a 
 preparation of shell-lime called chunam, but I am told that the 
 secret of making it has been lost. These cool verandahs, which 
 generally extend right round the bungalow, are at once the main 
 feature and chief luxury of oriental houses. Furnished with com- 
 fortable lounging chairs and light tables, they become pleasant 
 family sitting-rooms, with all the advantage of being out of doors, 
 combined with the comfort of being in shadow and looking out to 
 the bright sunlight through a veil of exquisite foliage and bright 
 blossoms.
 
 42 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 For the gardeners (or their masters) seem to vie one with another 
 who shall raise the most fairy-like profusion of beautiful flowers. 
 So roof and pillars are alike overgrown by luxuriant creepers, while 
 hanging baskets are filled with rare plants, and an endless variety 
 of bright-leaved caladiums adorn the edge of the verandah. The 
 flowering creepers are often trained to climb the neighbouring trees, 
 which are thus festooned with lovely blossoms — blue, crimson, or 
 gold. 
 
 The indigenous flame-coloured gloriosa, orange venusta, vanilla, 
 orchids, begonia, white and yellow jessamine, roses, fuchsias, the 
 vivid blue clitoria, and a tiny bright-blue convolvulus, strange pitcher- 
 plants, gorgeous passion-flowers of all colours, and the delicate 
 lavender blossoms of the Thunbergia, are among the most abundant 
 beauties of these flower-embowered homes. Here and there a richer 
 glow of rosy lilac reveals the gay foliage of the Bougainvillea, gar- 
 landing some sober tree with its bright wreaths of delicate leaves. 
 In short, everything flourishes in this hot, moist atmosphere, and 
 the mingled perfume of a thousand tropical blossoms is wafted on 
 every breath of breezy sunshine. 
 
 Unfortunately we cannot quite forget that the warm moisture 
 favours other growths less attractive, of which the most annoying 
 is a delicate white fungus which rapidly covers all clothes, gloves, 
 boots and shoes, papers and books, involving ceaseless watchfulness 
 and exposure to the sun to save them from becoming hopelessly 
 mildewed. In cases where it is possible to apply it, citronella oil is 
 a useful remedy. Neglected scissors and knives turn to a mass of 
 rust ; and sometimes the mould fungus even gets into the very 
 grain of the glass covering pictures, so that it is impossible to 
 remove the opaque stains. As to drawing-paper, it becomes 
 hopelessly mildewed as soon as it is landed ; and the only possible 
 corrective is to coat the paper with white paint ere commencing to 
 colour — an unsatisfactory process, but better than revealing fungus- 
 stars in every direction. 
 
 Then, too, the rough coir- matting on the verandahs, and the 
 gravel which is generally laid close round bungalows, remind us that 
 their primary object is to keep off snakes, which dislike gliding over 
 rough substances. Some very prudent people even object to over- 
 hanging trees, by which snakes may possibly climb so as to drop on 
 to the house ; but, as we have seen, the majority ignore this risk 
 for the sake of a flower-embowered home. Still it does not do to
 
 COLOMBO 43 
 
 torget that though Ceylon is Paradise, the serpent still asserts his 
 presence and his power in the fairest gardens. 
 
 Then in house-building another serious foe has to be taken 
 into account — namely, those stealthiest of aggressors, the white 
 ants, properly called termites — little soft white creatures about an 
 inch long, which look quite incapable of doing mischief ; and yet 
 no Samson in the house of the Philistines could work more deadly 
 harm than they when once they discover some secret means of 
 access to the woodwork of a house. Carefully keeping out of sight, 
 they work so diligently that in an incredibly short space of time 
 what seems to be solid rafters will prove to be mere hollow shells 
 full of powdered wood and cunningly cemented clay (where they 
 obtain the clay and glue is as great a mystery as is the silk and web 
 supplying power of silkworms and spiders). 
 
 The wood of the palmyra palm and of the ebony-tree are the 
 only Ceylonese timbers capable of resisting their ravages, and of 
 course the demand for these is so much greater than the supply, 
 that other wood — chiefly that of the jak-tree — is largely used in 
 house-building, but necessitates constant watchfulness. For this 
 reason, wooden posts can never be sunk in the ground, but must 
 rest on a stone foundation well in sight ; and even then these clever 
 engineers often frustrate this precaution by constructing very unob- 
 trusive tubular bridges of clay, through which they mount unseen, 
 and so attack the woodwork at their leisure. 
 
 Fortunately the workers are all wingless ; and though the perfect 
 termites, both male and female, are each endowed with four wings, 
 they happily do not take an unfair advantage of poor human beings 
 by flying to new centres of destruction. Indeed the females, or 
 rather the queens, have enough to do in recruiting the ant-legions, as 
 each is supposed by the lowest computation to lay 3,000,000 egg 
 every year ! 
 
 They seem to set very small value on their wings, which they 
 shed on the smallest provocation. Sometimes in the evening swarms 
 of these winged ants, both white and black, fly in at the ever-open 
 doors and windows, attracted by the lights ; and after hovering about 
 for a few moments, they vanish, leaving their wings behind them. I 
 have seen scores of wings thus dropped on a dinner-table ; and 
 occasionally the bereft owners drop beside them, looking naked and 
 humble. 
 
 Not only the woodwork of a house, but furniture and goods of all
 
 44 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 sorts, must be jealously guarded from the attacks of white ants ; and 
 any indication of clay in any crevice calls for immediate inspection. 
 Legions of black and red ants of various sizes, some quite tiny, 
 others half an inch in length, also involve constant watchfulness ; for 
 while the former would quickly make such havoc of a whole book- 
 case, or of a packing-case full of books, that little of them would be 
 left except the backs exposed to view, the active little ants are always 
 in search of something to devour, especially fruit, cakes, and sweet- 
 meats of all sorts. 
 
 As a defensive measure, the legs of beds, tables, pianos, &c., are 
 raised on glass stands, or set in jars full of water, while empty black 
 bottles laid in rows on the matting afford a tolerably secure founda- 
 tion for packing-cases and luggage of all sorts. 
 
 Provided they can be kept from poaching, the black and red ants 
 are invaluable scavengers, as they are for ever seeking what they may 
 devour ; and as there are upwards of seventy different species of ants in 
 Ceylon, their collective efforts in this direction are not to be despised. 
 Not only do they bodily carry off the corpses of any cockroaches, 
 beetles, or tiny lizards which they happen to find about the house, 
 but in the case of larger creatures, whose skeletons it may be desir- 
 able to preserve, such as snakes or small birds, it is enough to leave 
 them secure from crows and such awkward dissectors, — the ants 
 may safely be trusted to pick them faultlessly clean, and ready for 
 exhibition in any museum. It is, however, needless to add, that if 
 plumage is to be preserved, or butterflies, the ants, so far from being 
 benefactors, are transformed into an army of myriad foes, from whom 
 it will tax a collector's utmost ingenuity to defend his treasures. 
 
 But the red ants must be forgiven many indiscretions in con- 
 sideration of the vigorous war which they wage against the altogether 
 destructive white ants. Any one who likes can see this for himself 
 by breaking open a corner of one of the innumerable white ants' 
 castles which abound in the Cinnamon Gardens and elsewhere — ant- 
 hills perhaps six feet high of most intricate internal construction, 
 divided into separate compartments, and these into cells, all con- 
 nected by passages, and all built of the finest clay, which the crea- 
 tures can only obtain by excavating it from beneath the layer of 
 white quartz sand which covers the ground to a depth of several 
 inches. 
 
 By removing a corner of the roof, you not only may watch these 
 busy masons hard at work, but the chances are that in a very few
 
 COLOMBO 45 
 
 * 
 
 moments some wandering red ant will discover the breach in the 
 enemy's fortress, and forthwith he will summon a whole regiment of 
 small but most energetic red warriors, who will commence a furious on- 
 slaught on the hapless soft white masons, and then rapidly retire, 
 carrying with them the corpses of the slain. So you see the red ants 
 are man's useful allies. (In seasons of scarcity the ant-legions in the 
 arid districts of Manaar are still more valuable as involuntary fora- 
 gers. The Tamil villagers dig into their nests and rob them of all 
 their store of divers seeds.) 
 
 The aforesaid Cinnamon Gardens form one of the most popular 
 suburbs of Colombo, a considerable part having been sold by Go- 
 vernment as building lots, and purchased by wealthy individuals, 
 who have here built luxurious homes nestling in beautiful gardens. It 
 has, however, the disadvantage of being somewhat remote from the 
 sea, and so losing the freshness of the breeze, and being left a prey 
 to armies of mosquitos. But it is a very favourite evening drive, the 
 grounds being intersected by miles of good carriage-roads. 
 
 Of course the prevalence of one shrub implies monotony, and the 
 multitudinous great ant-hills to which I have alluded are a fair indi- 
 cation of the general neglect which has suffered these once jealously 
 guarded gardens to degenerate into a tangled jungle, rather sugges- 
 tive of a neglected shrubbery of Portugal laurels, glorified by the 
 natural growth of many flowering plants and a profusion of climbing 
 vines, especially a large white convolvulus, which blooms only at 
 night, and hence is commonly called ' the moon-flower.' The red 
 and yellow blossoms of the Lantana, the lilac Osbekia, a white 
 flower like scentless jessamine, rose-coloured periwinkles, and quaint 
 pitcher-plants, are among the many uncultivated plants ; and there 
 are also a number of large trees, which were originally planted for the 
 sake of their shade. 
 
 The aromatic cinnamon laurel itself, when left to follow its 
 natural will, grows to a height of about forty feet, but when under 
 cultivation it is kept pruned to about fifteen feet. As is the case 
 with many Ceylonese trees, its young foliage is scarlet, and gradually 
 changes to a dark glossy green, so that in the distance you would 
 fancy these young scarlet tips were blossoms. The latter are insig- 
 nificant, of a dingy white, with pale yellow inside, and have rather an 
 unpleasant smell. They flower in January, and by May have 
 developed into small purplish-brown berries, each provided with a 
 cup like that of the acorn.
 
 46 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 These l^errics, when bruised and boiled with the young shoots, 
 yield a fragrant oil, with which the wealthier natives anoint their hair, 
 and, like all brown races, some follow their daily ablutions with a little 
 polish of oil, just to make them of a cheerful countenance. This 
 cinnamon oil is sometimes mixed with cocoa-nut oil, and burns with 
 a most brilliant light. From this oil a thick white wax can be 
 prepared, which used to be in great request for the manufacture of 
 the tapers burnt in Buddhist temples, and also, under Portuguese rule, 
 for making candles for the Roman Catholic altars. But so small is 
 the amount of wax obtained from a very large quantity of berries, 
 that the manufacture could never be a paying industry, and so it has 
 fallen into disuse, and the crop of purple berries serves to fatten 
 flocks of turtle and cinnamon doves, whose soft cooing is heard on 
 every side. 
 
 Oil of camphor can be distilled from the roots of the cinnamon 
 laurel. An oil is also extracted from the leaves, which is sold under 
 the name of clove oil. The leaves when crushed in the hand have a 
 certain aromatic fragrance like that of cloves, but as to ' spicy breezes,' 
 there is no more smell of cinnamon here than in a hazel copse in 
 Britain. That is not perceptible till you break a twig, or till the poor 
 young shoots have been flayed and the inner bark is ready for export. 
 
 The cultivation is something like that of a willow copse, straight 
 young shoots springing up round the stump of the plant previously 
 cut. These in their turn are cut about every second year — that is to 
 say, when they are about five feet high and about two inches in cir- 
 cumference. A good many of these are sold as walking-sticks, and 
 find a ready market on board the steamers among the passengers, 
 who think there must be a special charm in a cinnamon stick, though 
 in truth it is hard to distinguish it from our own common hazel. 
 
 But of course the real thing to be secured is the highly aromatic 
 inner bark. So first of all the leaves are stripped off, and then the 
 bark is slit from end to end with a sharp knife, which has a curved 
 point ; with this, aided by fingers, the bark is carefully removed in 
 long pieces. These are heaped up and left to sodden, so as to 
 facilitate the next process — namely, that of scraping off the outer 
 rind. In order to do this, each piece is placed on a round piece of 
 wood and carefully scraped with the knife, the almost nude brown 
 workers sitting on the ground and using their toes as an extra hand 
 to steady the end of the stick. The bark is then left to dry in the 
 sun, when it rolls itself up into tight quills. These are then neatly
 
 COLOMBO 47 
 
 sorted and packed, three or four inside of one another, and are made 
 up into bales covered with cloth, and are then ready for export. 
 Broken quills are either sold as chips or reserved for the distiller, who 
 thence extracts oil of cinnamon, having first crushed and pounded 
 the bark, and then soaked it in sea-water for a couple of days. The 
 oil thus obtained is of a rich yellow or red colour. 
 
 Cinnamon is so singularly sensitive that great care has to be taken 
 with regard to its surroundings on board ship, as a bale of very fine 
 cinnamon will lose much of its delicate aroma if packed among bales 
 of coarser bark. Various expedients have been tried to remedy this. 
 The Portuguese and Dutch isolated the bales by packing them in 
 cocoa-nut fibre, or in cattle-hides ; but it is found that the only real 
 safeguard is to pack bags of pepper between the bales. 
 
 Alas ! in Ceylon as in some other countries, intending purchasers 
 have need to guard against possible fraud in their investment, for it 
 is said that certain native dealers have attained amazing skill in the 
 substitution of other worthless barks, notably that of guava, which, 
 after being duly prepared, is left for some hours to soak in the 
 strongly scented water left after the distillation of cinnamon oil. 
 This imparts the requisite sweet taste, and then a touch from a cloth 
 dipped in cheap cinnamon oil completes the deception. Quills of 
 either this prepared guava bark, or of coarse jungle cinnamon, are 
 neatly packed inside good quills, and then only an adept can detect 
 the fraud. 
 
 Strange indeed it is, looking at this jungle of neglected plants, 
 with their glossy scarlet and green foliage, to think how enormous is 
 the influence they have exerted on the fortunes of this Isle — an 
 influence literally of life and death ; for so resolute were the Dutch 
 in maintaining their monopoly of this precious spice, that in a.d. 1659 
 a law was enacted assigning death as the penalty of buying or selling 
 the wild jungle cinnamon, which was the only sort then known. 
 
 A few years later the same penalty was attached to stealing the 
 precious bark, to giving or receiving it, or to distilling camphor from 
 the roots of the tree. The least injury to a cinnamon plant, wherever 
 found, was punished by flogging, and when these Government Gardens 
 had been established, the destruction of a plant in these involved 
 certain death. But even supposing a cinnamon shrub to grow by 
 chance on a man's private ground, Dutch law declared all such to be 
 the property of the State ; no one save the authorised peelers dared 
 to touch it under severe penalties, and if the proprietor, anxious to
 
 48 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 keep his land to himself, and safe from State trespassers, dared to cut 
 it down, he was liable to capital punishment ! 
 
 It is difficult to understand how such laws could have been possible, 
 seeing that wild cinnamon grew so abundantly throughout the south- 
 western provinces, and in the Kandyan forests, and even on the east 
 coast near Batticaloa, that there seems every reason to believe it to 
 have been indigenous. The same inference is drawn from finding it 
 described in an ancient Sanskrit catalogue of plants as Singhalem, or 
 ' belonging to Ceylon.' 
 
 On the other hand, it is certainly singular, if this was the case, 
 that in enumerating the precious products of Ceylon in medieval 
 ages, when cinnamon was so greatly prized, it is never once 
 mentioned by any writer prior to Nicola de Conti, who in a.d. 1444 
 speaks of it as growing here. This certainly seems to give reason to 
 the argument of those who maintain that it was imported from Africa 
 — probably from Cape Guardafui- to the south-western districts, 
 where (like the Lantana in our own days) it rapidly became ac- 
 climatised, its seeds being carried by birds to more remote inland 
 districts. Hence perhaps the reason for the Dutch law against shoot- 
 ing crows. 
 
 Certain it is that when the Portuguese arrived here in the middle 
 of the fifteenth century, cinnamon was the one object desired, and 
 the selection of Colombo with only an open roadstead, to be the 
 headquarters of trade, in preference to Trincomalee with its 
 magnificent natural harbour, could only have been due to the fact of 
 its being the natural centre of the cinnamon region, and near to 
 Cotta, the residence of the Singhalese king, by whose favour alone 
 could the precious bark be obtained. 
 
 Finding that cinnamon was the one item desired by those foreign 
 traders, the king required the low-caste Chaliyas, who were weavers, 
 to pay him a heavy tribute in prepared bark ; so (at the proper 
 peeling season, in May, after the rains have softened the bark) they 
 had to leave their looms and enter the forests in search for cinnamon 
 — no sinecure in those days, when wild beasts abounded, and when 
 no less savage Kandyans were on the alert to harass their low- 
 country neighbours, sometimes cutting down the cinnamon trees in 
 order to annoy the foreigners. 
 
 The Kandyan king himself, however, was open to trade, and in 
 exchange for salt and Indian cloths, sent large consignments of 
 mountain cinnamon, much of which was too acrid for exportation.
 
 COLOMBO 49 
 
 The Portuguese seem to have sent out military escorts from their 
 various forts to guard the ChaUyas in their arduous work of collecting 
 the Maha badda or great tax ; and the Capitan de Canella, or chief 
 of the cinnamon-peelers, was treated both by the Portuguese and 
 afterwards by the Dutch with much honour. 
 
 Nevertheless these Chaliyas cannot have had a very happy time 
 of it, judging from the law enacted forbidding them to make any 
 complaints to the governor, except through the superintendent of the 
 cinnamon plantations, on pain of being put in chains for three years. 
 We may infer that complaints were not frequent, and that the art of 
 ' grinning and bearing ' was brought to great perfection. 
 
 Under the Portuguese rule, the collecting thereof seems to have 
 gone on fairly enough. Though their barbarous cruelties in war 
 were almost beyond belief, it was reserved for the Dutch to make such 
 laws as I have just quoted, in order to secure a monopoly in trade. 
 Amongst these was the enactment of a fine of a thousand guilders 
 for each plant of cinnamon or any other spice exported from the Isle 
 to India or Europe. This was evaded by the Dutch themselves, 
 who surreptitiously exported seeds, and it is said plants also, to Java, 
 and there established flourishing plantations. 
 
 But from the end of the fifteenth century till the middle of the 
 nineteenth, the cinnamon of Ceylon stood unrivalled, and the Isle 
 supplied almost all the spice used in Europe. Its price was kept up 
 both by the Portuguese and Dutch, by occasional bonfires of surplus 
 stock, so that there might be no glut in the market, such as has in 
 modern days of free trade caused such fluctuations in its price. In 
 the days of the monopoly, when the export was restricted to 8,000 
 bales of 100 lb. each, the price in the European market for cinnamon 
 of the finest quality was twelve shillings per lb. ; and between 
 A.D. 1753 and 1787 the price rose to seventeen shillings and eight- 
 pence. Now, when about 12,000 bales are annually shipped, one 
 shiUing per pound is the highest price that can be obtained for the 
 best bark. 
 
 In the first place, the high price of cinnamon led to the extensive 
 use of cassia, which is largely exported from China and India, and 
 which, though coarser and more pungent, strongly resembles 
 cinnamon. Then when Java, Tillicherry, Madras, Guiana, Martinique, 
 and Mauritius all succeeded in growing cinnamon, the market was 
 flooded with such coarse bark, selling at such low prices, that cassia 
 was in its turn almost driven from the field. It still, however, holds 
 
 E
 
 50 TWO NAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 its ground in the manufacture of chocolate for Russia and Turkey, 
 Mexico and Germany, where its pungent flavour is preferred to the 
 more delicate cinnamon. But in the manufacture of incense for 
 Greek and Roman Catholic churches and heathen temples, for 
 medicinal purposes and domestic use, and also in the preparation of 
 ' Thorley's Food for Cattle,' cinnamon is largely used. 
 
 To return to the ' Cinnamon Gardens,' whence I started on this 
 long digression : these and similar plantations were started by the 
 Dutch only in the last century, in order to be independent of the 
 supplies collected in the jungles in the interior of the Isle. They 
 were established all along the south-west coast, wherever there was a 
 fort to protect them, beginning at Matara and Galle in the south, 
 and extending as far north as Negombo and Chilaw. Some were on 
 a very large scale, this one at Colombo (Marandhan) covering 3,824 
 acres, while that at Negombo covered 5,137 acres. 
 
 They seem to have been simply tracts of the great jungle in 
 which wild cinnamon grew in dense profusion, more especially 
 between Negombo and Chilaw. Apparently the work of the Dutch 
 State gardeners was simply to clear the land of other jungle shrubs, 
 fill up the vacancies with cinnamon seedlings, and drain the ground. 
 Nature supplied the moist heat which is the first essential of cinna- 
 mon culture, and the shrub grows well even on poor soil. Never- 
 theless, it responds generously to more hospitable treatment, and it 
 is said that when portions of the Cinnamon Gardens were purchased 
 by private individuals, some who fed their land with rich manure 
 reaped a sevenfold harvest — in other words, they gathered 350 lb. of 
 bark to the acre, on land which had previously yielded 50 lb. 
 
 The natural soil of these gardens is very peculiar. The whole 
 surface is of the very finest snow-white quartz sand ; this, however, 
 is only a layer a few inches deep, covering a grey sand, beneath 
 which lies a stratum almost entirely composed of sea-shells, so that 
 the roots of the trees do strike nourishing soil. Such is the longevity 
 of the cinnamon laurel that many of the trees, which must be fully a 
 hundred years old, are still in full vigour. 
 
 When the British obtained possession of Ceylon, Government of 
 course succeeded to the monopoly, which was retained till 1832, 
 when it was abandoned, and the trade in cinnamon thrown open to 
 all merchants on payment of an export duty of three shillings a 
 pound. The Government Cinnamon Department, however, retained 
 its staff of highly paid English ofificials and numerous native officials^
 
 COLOMBO 51 
 
 together with hundreds of peelers, sorters, &c., till 1840, when, on 
 the representation of the merchants of the impossibility of their 
 trading against such competition, the Government connection with 
 the trade was altogether severed, and the export duty lowered to one 
 shilling per pound. Five years later this final tax was also removed, 
 but by this time the substitution of cassia and coarser cinnamon 
 from other places had so lowered the market that it has never since 
 recovered. 
 
 So the Government Gardens were sold at very low prices to 
 private individuals, and these at Colombo were reserved to be 
 disposed of in building lots, as purchasers could be found. A plot 
 has recently been assigned to the Parsees for the erection of a 
 * Tower of Silence ' for the disposal of their dead. 
 
 Speaking of the cinnamon laurel and of the rigorous Dutch laws 
 concerning it, reminds me of another very attractive member of the 
 laurel family — namely, the spicy nutmeg-tree {Myrisiica fragrans). 
 As the Dutch resolved that Ceylon should monopolise the trade of 
 the whole world in cinnamon and pepper, so they assigned to the 
 Moluccas the exclusive right to grow nutmeg and cloves. Quite 
 pathetic stories are told of the manner in which certain tender young 
 trees which found their way into gardens in Ceylon were ruthlessly 
 cut, and their owners haled to prison. 
 
 Happily under English rule the nutmeg-tree has fared better 
 having been formally introduced by Mr. Anstruther in 1838, so now 
 it flourishes without fear, and its fruit is perhaps the prettiest that 
 grows. At first sight it resembles a round golden-yellow pear, 
 hanging beneath its glossy green leaves, but when fully ripe this 
 golden fruit divides and reveals a ball of yellowish- scarlet mace 
 closely wrapped round a thin shining brown shell, within which lies 
 the familiar nutmeg. The yellow outer flesh makes an excellent 
 preserve. A favourite colonial story tells of an imperative order 
 from Britain to grow more mace and fewer nutmegs !
 
 52 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 COLOMBO 
 
 The oldest newspaper editor in the East — Turtles and tortoises — Ceylon timber for 
 cabinet-making — Bridge of boats — Kelani Temple — Buddhist priests of two sects 
 — Sacred fire — The Buddhist revival — Kotahena Temple — Riot — Cremation of a 
 priest. 
 
 Amongst the pleasant memories of many friends whose kindness 
 helped to brighten each day in the fair Isle, I cannot refrain from 
 naming one family, so numerous, and all so intimately associated 
 with Ceylon, that, under various names, they seemed to be ubiqui- 
 tous. I allude to that of Sir Charles Peter Layard, who (happily 
 still surviving) was the eldest of a family of twenty-three brothers 
 and sisters, most of whom married and settled in the Isle, as have 
 also many of their children. 
 
 Another name closely associated with Ceylon for the last fifty 
 years has been that of Mr. A. M. Ferguson, who for forty-four years 
 has ably edited the leading newspaper of the colony, the ' Ceylon 
 Observer,' and whose knowledge on all subjects connected with the 
 Isle causes him to be regarded as a sort of Ceylonese Encyclopedia. 
 Happily much of this knowledge is imparted to the public in a 
 copious Handbook and Directory, and in other publications of 
 special interest to the large planting community. 
 
 His brother, Mr. William Ferguson, a distinguished botanist, and 
 a keen lover of natural history in all its branches, was one of my 
 first friends at Colombo, and vividly do I remember my first re- 
 ception in his pretty bungalow. He had sent messengers in every 
 direction to search for specimens of the most beautiful and interest- 
 ing flowers, indigenous and exotic, scarlet, white, gold, and purple, 
 and with these his verandah was adorned, that he might give me a 
 delightfully illustrated botanical lecture, made quite realistic by the 
 presence of a great variety of live turtles and tortoises, at least a 
 score of these, some not much bigger than a penny, creeping all 
 over the place. I confess to some qualms at the activity of a lively 
 cobra with distended hood ! Then Mr. Ferguson showed us samples
 
 COLOMBO • 53 
 
 of all the reptiles of the Isle preserved in spirits, so that I came 
 away very much enlightened as to what I was to look out for in my 
 further travels. • He also gave me the following summary of Ceylonese 
 reptiles : — 
 
 ' Thirty-eight frogs of all sorts, and one apicsiium. 
 
 ' Seventy-nine snakes of all sorts, including twenty-three sea- 
 snakes, supposed to be found on our coasts, all of which are said to 
 be deadly. Of the others only three are deadly, and four more are 
 poisonous. 
 
 * Forty-five of the family of crocodiles, including lizards, geckoes, 
 blood-suckers, and one chameleon. 
 
 ' Eight tortoises, and fresh and salt water turtles.' 
 
 Some of the land tortoises are tiny little brown things, but others 
 are very pretty, perhaps from four to eight inches in length, with 
 convex shell beautifully marked. I have one, of which the scales 
 resemble limpets, each striped with bright yellow rays on a rich 
 brown or black ground. Another has flat pentagonal scales like 
 shields, each with bright yellow centre set in brown and black. 
 These retain all their beautiful natural polish. They are generally 
 found in or near ponds. 
 
 The Tamil fishers describe turtles as kaddal amai or ' sea-turtles,' 
 while tortoises are called ' milk-turtles ' and ' pariah-turtles.' The 
 latter are found in marshes and ditches, and, though not edible, are 
 highly valued by the natives on account of certain medicinal proper- 
 ties supposed to belong to them, their flesh and blood being deemed 
 an antidote for infantile sickness ! The ' milk-turtle ' {fal a//iai), or 
 terrapin, live in tanks and wells, and are said to be useful as 
 scavengers, devouring insects and their larvae. 
 
 Of ' sea-turtle ' there are several varieties, of which the principal 
 are the edible turtle and the hawk's-bill. The former are found on 
 all parts of the coast, and are specially abundant in the north of the 
 Isle. On the small twin isles of Iranativu near Jaffna they are so 
 numerous as to form the chief food of the people, to say nothing of 
 furniture, the shells being used as seats. At certain seasons, how- 
 
 1 Ceylon is truly a happy hunting-ground for collectors. Thus in March 1889 a 
 German naturalist, Herr Frtihstorfer, landed here. He enlisted fourteen collectors to 
 work for him all over the Isle, and in July he departed taking with him a collection 
 of upwards of 25,000 beetles, 7,000 butterflies, 3,000 orthoptera (i.e. ' straight-winged,' 
 which includes mantis, leaf-insects, spectre-insects, walking-sticks, grasshoppers, 
 crickets, locusts, <S:c. ), 3,000 dragon-flies, i.cco spiders and centiptdes, and all 
 rnanner of land and sea snakes ; also a fine collection of shells.
 
 54 TIVO HAPPY YEA PS IN CEYLON 
 
 ever, they are so unwholesome as to be accounted poisonous ; in 
 fact, in various instances deaths have been attributed to feasting on 
 turtle out of season. Large quantities of their soft round white eggs 
 are also eaten, the mother turtle confidingly depositing from one 
 to two hundred in the warm sun, in the very presence of hungry 
 men ! These creatures are sometimes captured of a very large size, 
 four or five feet in length, and their shells are utilised in various 
 ways. 
 
 But the turtle which yields the beautiful tortoise-shell of com- 
 merce is the hawk's-billj which is not considered wholesome, and a 
 very barbarous method used to be practised by the natives in order 
 to secure several sets of scales from the same creature. It was 
 captured and suspended over a wood fire till the heat made the scales 
 drop off, after which it was allowed to crawl away scorched and 
 bereft of its coveted shell. 
 
 I speak of this in the past tense, because the police are now ever 
 on the alert to prevent all manner of cruelty to animals, so that such 
 barbarities as this, and also cutting up live turtles and selling them 
 bit by bit, are at least less common than of old. The reason assigned 
 in this case is that the shell loses its natural gloss and becomes 
 opaque if the poor turtle has been allowed to die. In some other 
 isles, however — e.g. the Celebes — the turtles are first knocked on 
 the head, and then dipped in boiling water, by which means the 
 outer shell is detached in better condition than by the barbarous 
 smoking process. 
 
 The names turtle and tortoise are used so promiscuously that I 
 was glad to learn a simple distinction between them — namely, that 
 turtles which live chiefly in the sea are furnished with fin-like 
 flappers, whereas land tortoises have neat little feet with claws. The 
 terrapin, or marsh tortoises, have webbed feet and claws, so that 
 they are provided for all contingencies. 
 
 It has been said that a placid temperament tends to longevity, 
 and certainly these creatures happily illustrate the theory. We 
 know that even in so cold a climate as that of Britain tortoises have 
 lived to a very great age. There is preserved at Peterborough 
 Cathedral the shell of one which was known to have been upwards 
 of one hundred and eighty years old, when it was killed by an 
 accident. And at Lambeth may still be seen the shell of one which 
 Archbishop Laud brought there from Fulham, and which is known 
 to have lived there for one hundred and thirty years, during which
 
 COLOMBO 55 
 
 time no less than eight archbishops ruled over Canterbury. There 
 is no saying how many more it might have survived had it not been 
 for the carelessness of a gardener who dug it out of its hole one cold 
 winter day and neglected to provide it with- another, and the poor 
 thing being too drowsy to find one for itself, died of cold. 
 
 That, at least, is a danger from which no tortoise is likely to 
 suffer in Ceylon (unless he takes to mountain climbing) ; conse- 
 quently I believe they do not hibernate here, but live in conscious- 
 ness all the year round. One of the regular sights at Colombo is a 
 noble old tortoise of unknown age, but which is believed to have 
 been a native of the Galapagos Isles, and supposed to have been 
 about fifty years of age when it was sent from Singapore as an offer- 
 ing to one of the Dutch governors of Colombo Fort, upwards of a 
 hundred and fifty years ago. 
 
 From that time to the present it has been a pet of the foreign 
 residents, having been ' taken over ' from the Dutch and left in pos- 
 session of the garden at Tangue Salgado (now known as Uplands). 
 Here early colonists used to amuse themselves by tortoise-riding, 
 seven or eight men standing at once on his strong back, while he 
 slowly but steadily walked off with his heavy burden. But now, 
 alas ! he is quite blind, and moves very slowly, only seeming to 
 find some pleasure while grazing in the cool moist grass near the 
 well. 
 
 The Japanese have adopted a mythological variety of this family 
 as an emblem of longevity, and not without good reason. Even as 
 I write, the daily papers report the capture on the St. John river, 
 Florida, of a tortoise bearing the arms of Spain, and the date 1700 
 plainly discernible on its dorsal shell, as also the following inscrip- 
 tion (doubtless in Spanish): 'Captured in the year 1700 by Fer- 
 nando Gomez in the St. Sebastian river : taken later on by the 
 Indians to Montanzas, and from there to the Great Wekima.' The 
 latter was the ancient name of the river now known as the St. John. 
 After showing this elderly tortoise to several friends, the captor 
 added the date 1890 and released it, perhaps to enjoy another cen- 
 tury of placid existence. 
 
 A specially interesting visit in Colombo was to Alfred House, the 
 home of Mr. Charles de Soysa, said to be the wealthiest native of 
 Ceylon, and certainly the most eminently philanthropic, his influence 
 and his wealth having always been at the service of every wise 
 scheme for the help and improvement of the people.
 
 56 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 A maternity hospital, a model farm, and an admirably conducted 
 college at Moratuwa, are among the public benefactions by which he 
 will be best remembered, and widespread and real was the grief of 
 many thousands who attended his funeral, when in the autumn of 
 1890 this true friend of rich and poor died of hydrophobia. Sad to 
 say, he was bitten by a mad terrier on August 2, and died on Sep- 
 tember 29, happily without great pain. His European friends vainly 
 pleaded that he should at once start for Paris to place himself under 
 the care of M. Pasteur, but he resolved to retire to Moratuwa, and 
 there abide by the treatment of the Singhalese ivedaralas^ which 
 unhappily proved ineffectual. 
 
 Si)ecially interesting to. a new-comer in the Isle were the beauti- 
 ful specimens of furniture at Alfred House, much of it richly carved, 
 made from all the choicest woods of the Ceylonese forests — forests 
 which, alas ! have hitherto been so ruthlessly destroyed by natives and 
 foreigners that many of the most valuable trees, once so abundant, 
 are now exceedingly rare. 
 
 Doubtless many persons still remember the very valuable furni- 
 ture which was lent by M. de Soysa to the Indian and Colonial 
 Exhibition in 1886. That was a fair sample of the home treasures 
 of which he was so justly proud. 
 
 Of all the Ceylonese woods, I think the handsomest is the Cala- 
 mander, with its rich brown and yellow markings. Unfortunately 
 its beauty has almost resulted in its extermination, the forests where 
 once it grew having now been entirely cleared of every tree worth 
 cutting. 
 
 The Pulu and the Kumbuk are both very pretty rich brown 
 woods ; the Katu-puli has a mahogany-coloured centre, with a straw- 
 coloured edge ; the Makulai has also a rich mahogany centre ; the 
 Maruta is amber-tinted at the heart, with a pale outer circle ; and 
 the tamarind is of a rich chocolate colour, with a yellow edge, its 
 root being specially prized. The tamarind is, however, so very hard 
 as to be extremely difficult to work. 
 
 These are but a few from among many of the choicest specimens, 
 as you can well understand, seeing that the Ceylonese forests yield 
 about ninety different useful timbers. One of the most beautiful is 
 the pale-yellow satin-wood, which fifty years ago was so abundant in 
 the north-eastern forests that it was commonly used for house-build- 
 ing, and even for making bridges, notably that beautiful bridge which 
 spans the Maha-velli-ganga at Peradeniya, near Kandy. One rare
 
 COLOMBO 57 
 
 and precious variety is known as flowered satin-wood, and is very 
 highly valued. 
 
 Perhaps the most singular of all ornamental woods is the ebony, 
 of which there are two kinds, distinguished by the natives as Kalu- 
 wara and Karun-kali, both having the same peculiar characteristic 
 of a jet-black heart set in a pale outer edge : some one has aptly 
 described it as a white tree with black marrow. Akin to the true 
 ebony is the Kadumberia, with tiger-like markings of brown and 
 yellow merging in the black centre. Its roots yield most beautiful 
 fantastic waving patterns of black or fawn colour. 
 
 Several of the palm-trees — notably the palmyra and cocoa — are 
 also of exceedingly beautiful grain and colour, and when denuded of 
 their bark and polished, they form very handsome pillars. 
 
 A good deal of timber from the eastern forests is floated down 
 the rivers to the sea, and there formed into rafts, and so conveyed to 
 its destination. A very few days after I arrived at St. Thomas's 
 College a large raft of ebony arrived from Trincomalee, and was 
 landed on the sands just below the College while I was sketching on 
 the shore. One tree at a time was detached ; and ten or twelve 
 brown coolies, whose raiment consisted chiefly of a turban, waded or 
 swam to the raft with a bamboo and cords, by which they attached 
 the tree, and so floated it ashore and carried it up the bank. 
 
 One of our earliest expeditions was to visit an ancient Buddhist 
 temple on the farther bank of the Kelani river, which we crossed by 
 a bridge of boats. That in itself was interesting. It seemed so 
 strange to see such an array of boats anchored side by side right 
 across the wide stream, placed to act as piers in supporting the 
 roadway, across which a ceaseless traffic of heavily-laden creaking 
 bullock-carts was passing to and fro. It is a curious survival of 
 what is now ancient history — namely, Ceylon as it was in 1830, 
 without roads or bridges, and when this military bridge of boats, 
 constructed by Sir Edward Barnes, was an unspeakable boon to 
 brown men and white. 
 
 Now, however, in these days of rapid progress, when, first-class 
 iron girders span the most distant and out-of-the-way rivers with the 
 minimum of trafiic, this cumbersome old-fashioned approach to the 
 capital is felt to be out of keeping with the times. While the stop- 
 page of all land traffic for one hour daily, to allow boats to pass up 
 and down the river, is felt to be a grievous inconvenience to carts, 
 carriages, and pedestrians, the luckless boat-owners murmur, with
 
 58 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 graver cause, at a detention of perhaps twenty-three hours ere they 
 can be allowed to pass. 
 
 Moreover, in the summer floods, which almost annually cause 
 serious damage to the low lands near the mouth of the river, this 
 bridge is frequently not only closed to traffic, but its very existence 
 is endangered by the sweeping down of floating trees and timber- 
 rafts, and accidents are imminent. So this interesting relic is doomed, 
 and is to be replaced by a fine iron bridge of eight spans, four of loo 
 feet and four of 30 feet. 
 
 The river derives its name from a very ancient city which once 
 stood on its banks, and of which this temple is a descendant, inas- 
 much as it was built in the year a.d. 1240, and rebuilt about a.d. 
 1 301, on the site of one which dated from about 500 13. c. 
 
 Within the temple a great image of Buddha sits beneath the 
 Naga canopy {i.e. overshadowed by the great hooded cobra), and in 
 most happy companionship with images of Ganesha, Vishnu, and 
 Siva, the latter grasping his trident. Those who are interested in 
 ritualistic eccentricities will note that Siva's hand is uplifted in the 
 orthodox attitude of blessing, with the first and second fingers raised, 
 and the third and fourth closed. 
 
 To the student of theoretic Buddhism, which inculcates no 
 worship of any sort (least of all the worship of Buddha himself), and 
 which dispenses with all supernatural aid, this amalgamation of 
 creeds is startling, but in Ceylon, as in Siam, it is quite a matter of 
 course ; indeed, even in China and Japan, the Hindoo gods find 
 room in many a Buddhist temple, practical Buddhism being simply 
 the addition of the founder's own image, and those of his many 
 disciples and saints, to those of the multitudinous idols whom he 
 strove to extirpate. 
 
 That this very debased form of Buddhism is so prevalent in 
 Ceylon is due to the fact that the priesthood imported from Siam by 
 the ancient kings incorporated all manner of Hindoo superstitions 
 and caste prejudices, refusing to admit men of low caste to the 
 higher orders of the priesthood, while permitting all to combine with 
 their priestly duties such occupations as astrology, the practice of 
 medicine, &c. 
 
 A very much purer form of Buddhism is, however, held by the 
 priests of the Amarapoora sect, now largely on the increase. These 
 derive their ecclesiastical orders from Burmah, and disclaim all 
 connection with the polytheism of India, rigidly excluding from their
 
 COLOMBO 59 
 
 temples every image or symbol of Hindoo worship. They are readily 
 distinguished from the Siamese priesthood by the fact of wearing 
 their long yellow robe folded round the body so as to cover both 
 shoulders, whereas the Siamese always have one end falling over the 
 left shoulder, while the right arm and neck are always bare. All 
 agree in the necessity of shaving the head, but the controversy as to 
 whether shaving the eyebrows is incumbent has been as hot as the 
 tonsure question in the Christian Church. 
 
 Curiously enough, of all the multitudinous images of Buddha 
 which I saw in Ceylon, I cannot recall one which has not the right 
 shoulder uncovered, so the inference is that all must have been 
 sculptured or built under the influence of men of the Siamese 
 sect. 
 
 These reserve certain portions of the sacred books for the exclu- 
 sive use of the priests of the highest grade. The Burmese priests, 
 on the contrary, expound the whole of the sacred books to all the 
 people ; they totally ignore caste, but insist on the priests abstaining 
 from all secular work. 
 
 The origin of these sects forms a noteworthy feature in the history 
 of Ceylon. It seems that for several centuries Buddhism had been 
 degenerating, and departing farther and farther from its original 
 purity. At length, owing to the prolonged civil wars which desolated 
 the Isle towards the close of the seventeenth century, the Upasayn- 
 pada, or highest order of priests, had almost ceased to exist ; and as 
 they alone were competent to ordain the Samanaros, or priests of 
 lower grade, there seemed every probability that Buddhism would 
 simply evaporate from Ceylon. 
 
 At this juncture the Jesuit missionaries very naturally endeavoured 
 to secure a firmer footing, but the Dutch, therein scenting the poli- 
 tical influences of Portugal, determmed to counteract their action. 
 They therefore gave every assistance to the Buddhists by lending 
 them ships to convey a special mission to Arracan, whence a number 
 of fully qualified priests were imported to reanimate their brethren, 
 and effectually oppose the efforts of the Roman Catholic mis- 
 sionaries. 
 
 About eighty years later, however, it again became necessary to 
 import priests of the highest order, and this time the King of Kandy 
 sent an embassy to Siam, there to claim this ecclesiastical aid. The 
 Siamese priests, however, so far from restoring Buddhism to its 
 purity, sanctioned all the corruptions which had crept in, and
 
 6o TJl'O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 especially refused to admit men of low birth to the higher offices of 
 the priesthood. 
 
 This exclusiveness induced the low-caste priests to organise an 
 expedition to Burmah, the very centre of orthodox Buddhism, there 
 to claim the ordination which was denied them in Ceylon. They 
 were received with open arms, not only by the Burmese high priest 
 (who had been greatly troubled on account of the degeneracy of the 
 faith in Ceylon), but also by the king himself, who caused their ordi- 
 nation to be celebrated with regal honours. They were seated on 
 golden howdahs, borne by stately elephants ; two golden umbrellas 
 of state were held over each of the candidates, who were escorted 
 first to the royal palace, and thence to the hall of ordination, by a 
 procession of thqusands of officials of every grade, together with a 
 vast crowd of people. 
 
 On their return to Ceylon in 1802 these priests became the 
 founders of the aforesaid Amarapoora sect, between which and their 
 brethren in Siamese orders there exists a great gulf, each assuming 
 the other to be swamped in fatal error. 
 
 Although the title of ' priest ' is used for convenience, the position 
 of these men is curiously anomalous. Sir Monier Williams says they 
 should rightly all be called ' monks.' That this is so, is evident from 
 the ' Buddhist Catechism,' by Colonel Olcott, President of the 
 Theosophical Society, in which it is stated, ' Buddhist priests do not 
 acknowledge or expect anything from a Divine Power, but they ought 
 to govern their lives according to the doctrine of Buddha. Buddhists 
 regard a personal God as only a gigantic shadow thrown upon the 
 void of space by the imagination of ignorant men. . . , We do not 
 believe in miracle, hence we deny creation, and cannot conceive of a 
 Creator.' 
 
 Where, then, is the necessity for priestly ministers ? 
 
 As regards the worshippers, the chief mode of accumulating 
 merit in every Buddhist country is the ceaseless reiteration of 
 Buddha's name. In China, 0-vii-to-fu is the charm ; in Thibet, 
 0-via7ii-padhi-hum, — it is all the same thing. The sovereign balm 
 for every woe is to repeat the name of Buddha, and when you have 
 done this ten thousand times ten thousand, begin again. Buddhism 
 has nothing better for any wounded spirit. 
 
 The walls of the Kelani temple are covered with painting, repre- 
 senting divers legends. Before all the altars are heaped offerings of 
 fragrant, but, alas ! fading flowers and delicate ferns, jessamine, roses,
 
 COLOMBO 6i 
 
 lovely lotus-blossoms, scarlet hibiscus, the large yellow bells of the 
 allamanda, sweet yellow champac, and, most delicious of all, the 
 curly cream-coloured blossoms of the temple flower ' or awaria. The 
 latter is a curiously thick-set stumpy tree, bearing clusters of long 
 narrow leaves and blossoms on very stout branches, from which a 
 milky-white juice oozes when you gather a flower. It is really a 
 South American tree, and is supposed to have been brought thence 
 to the Philippine Isles in the beginning of the sixteenth century. 
 (Magellan made the first direct voyage in a.d. 1520, and many plants 
 from the New World were very soon brought thither, and thence 
 made their way to farther points.) 
 
 These trees are almost invariably grown near the temples, for the 
 sake of the enchantingly fragrant perfume of the blossoms, each of 
 which is like a cluster of five pure creamy shells with yellow heart. 
 Within the temples the scent before evening becomes oppressive, 
 especially as the floral offerings include many marigolds, whose 
 orthodox yellow colour outweighs their unpleasant smell. 
 
 The most attractive offerings are the plume-like blossoms of the 
 areca and cocoa palms, both of which seem as though they were 
 carved in purest ivory. Many of these are offered for sale in shops - 
 
 1 Phaneria acutifolia. 
 
 ^ One is loth to think of dishonesty and violence as possible in connection with 
 such offerings. But the following paragraph from the ' Ceylon Observer,' April 12, 
 1891, exemplifies a curious phase of fraud : — 
 
 ' Scene at a Buddhist Temple. — Last evening there was a gathering of people at the 
 Buddhist temple at Kotahena ; and the proceedings of the evening terminated by one 
 of the Buddhist priests being assaulted and robbed. As is the custom on such 
 occasions, a number of flower sellers assembled outside the temple premises and put 
 up stalls on the roadside for the sale of flowers, water-lilies included. These are 
 purchased by the motley crowd who assemble at the temple, and offered at the shrine 
 of their god. 
 
 ' It appears that some persons , after presenting their offerings, took theflozvers back to 
 the stalls and resold them. The Buddhist priests, incensed at the deceit practised, and 
 the indignity offered to their leader, took immediate steps to denounce the practice by 
 beat of tomtom, and to warn the assembled multitude that a repetition of such conduct 
 would not be tolerated. 
 
 ' Shortly afterwards a bully of the Kotahena district, Swaris by name, who is also 
 one of those " ill-omened birds of prey " who infest the courts, with five others of his 
 kin, rushed into the temple premises and gave Janananda Unnanse a good beating, 
 finally stabbing the yellow-robed gentleman with a knife in his right arm. The 
 culprits walked away, but before doing so helped themselves to the poor priest's 
 yellow robes, two in number, some other clothing, and a large sum of money. 
 
 ' The Unnanse charged the offenders this morning before the police court.' 
 
 A curious illustration of the spirit of meanness in regard to offerings is the common 
 saying with regard to any beautiful flowers growing hopelessly out of reach, ' I offer it 
 to Buddha ! '
 
 62 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 in the bazaar, that worshippers who have not brought their gift with 
 them may not enter the temple empty-handed. In the outer court 
 is a very sacred Bo-tree {Ficus religiosa), an offshoot from that at 
 Anaradhapura, as indeed every Bo-tree in the Isle is supposed to be. 
 This tree receives its full share of floral offerings, as do also various 
 hideous idols beneath its shadow. 
 
 Outside the temple there are great lamps wherein sacred fire 
 burns all the year round. This is extinguished on April 13, and is 
 renewed by striking fire from stones. The sacred fire thus obtained 
 is locked up in a great cage-like lamp, supported by a brass peacock, 
 and is fed by the drip of cocoa-nut oil led in from an external 
 reservoir. 
 
 I also noted with interest a lamp-stand or chandelier, like a tree, 
 with lotus-blossoms to act as lamps. This is rotatory, and very like 
 one in the Court of the ' Beautiful Temple ' at Nikko in Japan. 
 One of the kindly yellow-robed priests could talk English, and as I 
 had so recently seen the rotatory prayer-wheels on the borders of 
 Thibet, I asked him whether any such existed in Ceylon. He 
 informed me that there either is or was one, in a temple in that 
 neighbourhood. I never, however, saw a trace of anything of the 
 sort in Ceylon.' 
 
 Near the temple is the preaching-house, where the faithful 
 assemble to hear sermons. As we wandered about we were escorted 
 by a number of gentle Singhalese ; pretty small children offered us 
 flowers, and some of the smallest toddled beside us, grasping our 
 dresses in the most confiding manner. 
 
 Till quite recently this was the only Buddhist temple of any import-" 
 ance near Colombo, the Dutch having brought the 'persuasive 
 eloquence of the cannon ' to bear on all heathen temples within 
 range of their forts. During their reign, worship was prohibited here 
 also, and the priests were banished from the temple. Of course, 
 from the moment the Union-jack was hoisted, perfect liberty of 
 conscience was secured to all creeds. Within the last fifteen years, 
 however, under the fostering care of the British Government, the 
 Buddhist priests have been reinstated in greater power and honour 
 than for many past centuries, insomuch that many of the Singhalese 
 
 1 I have described all the varieties of Buddhist so-called wheels, or rather revolving 
 cylinders, containing prayers, images, or books, in ' In the Himalayas,' pp. 424 to 
 441— published by Chatto & Windus ; also in 'Wanderings in China,' vol. ii. pp. 
 195 and 331 — published by W. Blackwood & Sons.
 
 COLOMBO 63 
 
 believe, with some apparent reason, that England's Queen must be 
 at heart a Buddhist. 
 
 To average Christians who believe it to be a matter earnestly to 
 be desired, that all false faiths should fade away before the One True 
 Light of the world, it is a cause of very deep regret that (whereas, till 
 quite recently, the condition of Buddhism in Ceylon was such, and 
 the contempt of the people for the majority of its priests was so 
 strong, that there seemed every probability of its soon becoming a 
 dead letter) it has within the last few years received so large a 
 measure of State patronage — unprecedented since the days of the 
 Buddhist kings — as has electrified it into a state of renewed and 
 aggressive vigour. 
 
 One very difficult question concerns the part to be taken by the 
 State in regard to what are described as Buddhist temporalities. 
 Whereas in 1881 the British Government marked its perfect neu- 
 trality in matters of creed by disestablishing the Episcopal (previously 
 the State) Church of Ceylon, in 1889 it ordered the election of com- 
 mittees of Buddhist laymen to take strict supervision of the enormous 
 revenues of the Buddhist temples, not in order to secure their expen- 
 diture on philanthropic work and on Government schools, but 
 solely to check their appropriation by priests for their personal use, 
 and to ensure their application to the definitely religious service of 
 these temples, and to pansala schools directly in connection there- 
 with. It had been proved that in the well-endowed districts, 
 especially those around Kandy, where Buddhism is wealthiest, the 
 priests scarcely kept up any pretence of teaching the people, even by 
 the wretched education in pansala schools ; and that the temple 
 revenues were in many cases appropriated for the vilest purposes. 
 
 (In the Fijian Isles, where it is little more than fifty years since 
 the first Christian missionary landed in a group peopled with ferocious 
 cannibals, it would now be hard to find one man, woman, or child 
 who cannot read and write. In Ceylon in 1890 it was found that 
 23 per cent, of the men and 79 per cent, of the women throughout the 
 Isle could not write their own name, and in Kandy only 4 per cent, 
 of the women can sign their own name in their marriage register. So 
 much for the pansala schools !) 
 
 When the passing of this Buddhist Temporalities Bill was under 
 discussion, the Buddhist priests sent a strong protest to show the 
 impossibility of their submitting the management of their temple 
 funds to laymen, ' who by the laws of Buddhism ivere bound to worship
 
 64 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 tJw priests.^ Nevertheless, the ordinance was passed, and lay trustees 
 appointed, whereupon many of the priests hastened to ' realise ' as 
 much temple property as possible for their own behoof. Amongst 
 other things, the police captured a man laden with a sackful of gold 
 and silver images of Buddha, and other temple treasures. The case 
 was tried, and the priest, who had sent these goods to be sold for his 
 private benefit, maintained that he was fully entitled to do so ! Such 
 being the priests' views of the temple property committed to their 
 trust, it follows that all efforts of the lay authorities to carry out their 
 instructions have been vigorously opposed by the priests, resulting in 
 a general chaos, from which, it is urged, nothing can rescue them 
 save the actual management by Government of temple funds ; in 
 other words, the re-establishing of a distinctly official relation with 
 Buddhism. This is exactly what the Buddhists want, and it would 
 be recognition on no small scale ; for although Ceylon no longer 
 boasts, as in days of old, of supporting 60,000 Buddhist priests, it is 
 a notable fact that between one-third and one-fourth of the cultivated 
 land of the island is the property of the Buddhist monasteries, and 
 as such is exempt from the taxation which applies to all rice-growing 
 lands. 
 
 The whole history of Buddhism in Ceylon is that of a system 
 upheld by the strong will of the rulers by whom in various ages 
 these enormous gifts of land were made (subject to certain condi- 
 tions regarding their occupation) to the Buddhist Vihares and Hindoo 
 Dewales, which, while theoretically antagonistic, are in fact inextri- 
 cably blended. These gifts included the serfdom in perpetuity of 
 all the many thousands of inhabitants, who in each succeeding age 
 were born to the most absolute slavery of compulsory work for the 
 service of the temples, and who were bought and sold with the land, 
 should the temple authorities see fit to sell portions of their estates. 
 
 Against this yoke of bondage the serfs have vainly striven, and 
 but for the continued support of the rulers, the priests would all 
 along have been totally unable to exact the oppressive and often 
 detested service. Unfortunately, under an entire misapprehension 
 of the true relation of priests and people, the earlier British governors 
 deemed it politic (as a supposed means of securing a strong influence 
 with the people) to extend official support to Buddhism as 'the 
 national creed.' 
 
 This mistaken policy was sealed when, after the capture of the 
 last king of Kandy in 1815, a Convention was signed with the
 
 COLOMBO 6s 
 
 Kandyan chiefs, whereby Sir Robert Brownrigg, as Britain's repre- 
 sentative, undertook that she should maintain and protect the rites 
 and places of worship of the Buddhist religion — an iniquitous com- 
 pact with idolatry, which surely ought to have been at once repu- 
 diated by a Christian nation. 
 
 Sir Robert himself interpreted this clause as merely promising 
 the Buddhists security from molestation in the exercise of their 
 religion ; but the terms of this treaty have proved a source of grave 
 perplexity to successive governors, who have found themselves poli- 
 tically bound to do honour to a creed dishonouring to that which they 
 themselves hold to be the only truth. 
 
 Moreover, though it had been abundantly proved how small 
 the influence of the priests really was, apart from Government 
 support, nevertheless, by the action of the British Government in 
 recognising these temple rights, an immense multitude of British 
 subjects continued to be held in fetters which bound them 
 body and soul alike, liberty of conscience being for them a mere 
 fiction. 
 
 This state of virtual slavery continued in full force, till, on its 
 iniquity being fully recognised by Sir Hercules Robinson, a Service 
 Tenures Ordinance was passed in 1870, by which serfs were em- 
 powered to free themselves from compulsory labour by commuta- 
 tion — i.e. by paying an equivalent in coin, so that their position 
 might become that of voluntary tenants, paying rent in service or in 
 money. 
 
 This decision, theoretically so satisfactory, does not seem to have 
 remedied the evil, for in the Administration Report for the province 
 of Sabaragamuwa in 1885, the service tenures were referred to as ' a 
 system which virtually keeps a large class in bondage ; ' and in the 
 Report for 1887 it was stated that ' existing services and rates are 
 outrageously high, and calculated on obsolete services' — that is to 
 say, that when temple serfs desire to pay in money, instead of render- 
 ing service to their feudal lords, an equivalent was claimed far beyond 
 the actual value of their services, and if they declined to pay at this 
 rate, or were unable to do so, they found themselves involved in 
 ruinous expenses of litigation. 
 
 It is said that the latest legislation on the subject, the Buddhist 
 Temporalities Ordinance of 1889, has failed to afford them relief, and 
 that the only possible solution of such grave difficulties will be for 
 the British Government to resume possession of the lands, and make
 
 66 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 over to the temples such a portion of the legitimate taxes as her 
 Majesty's Government shall deem proper. 
 
 Certainly that carelessly worded Convention of 1815 has led to 
 strange incongruities. 
 
 Imagine that so late as 1846, bills were rendered to, and dis- 
 charged by Government, for hire of devil-dancers, decorating temples, 
 and all other expenses of heathen worship, as ' for Her Majesty's 
 Service ' ! 
 
 Till 1852 Buddhist high priests and Basnaike Nilkmcs {i.e. lay 
 chiefs of Dewales — i.e. Hindoo temples) were appointed by a written 
 instrument, signed and sealed by the Governor or Government 
 agent. I believe the last appointments are still retained in the 
 gift of Government, as being lucrative posts, wherewith to reward 
 meritorious public servants ; and so great is the temptation of such 
 appointments, that even nominal Christians have abjured their faith 
 and embraced Hindooism in order to qualify themselves for such 
 patronage from their Christian rulers. A case in point occurred so 
 lately as 1889. 
 
 About twenty years ago, when attention was first called to the 
 scandalous misappropriation by the priests of the great temple 
 revenues, an ecclesiastical reformation was inaugurated by Suma- 
 nagala, the High Priest of Galle and of the Shrine of the Holy 
 Footprint, on the summit of Adam's Peak. In 1873, under the 
 direct patronage and with the aid of the British Government, he 
 founded the Vidyodaya College in Colombo, for the purpose of 
 supplying the whole island with a priesthood thoroughly imbued 
 with all Buddhistic philosophy, discipline, and metaphysics ; and 
 who would deem it their special duty to establish such schools in 
 connection with every temple, that Buddhist parents may no longer 
 seek education for their children at Christian schools. 
 
 This college is also designed to encourage in the laity a love for 
 the oriental literature which has been, as it were, excavated from 
 beneath accumulated mountains of rubbish by the European students 
 who revived the study of the ancient sacred books. Consequently 
 a very valuable and rapidly increasing oriental library has been here 
 collected, and an enthusiasm has been stirred up, which has drawn 
 student priests from Siam, Cambodia, China, and Japan, to study 
 the sacred Pali and Sanskrit books at this college, which thus gives 
 promise of becoming the centre of a great revival of Buddhism. 
 It has already established four branch institutions in other parts
 
 COLOMBO 67 
 
 of Ceylon for the spread of Sanskrit literature, as also a preparatory 
 school in connection with the college itself. The King of Siam has 
 endowed a scholarship for ' proficiency in the Buddhist scriptures,' 
 the Government of Ceylon aids the upkeep of the college, and the 
 prizes have been annually distributed to the students by the British 
 Governor himself, on the principle of showing absolute impartiality 
 to all faiths professed by the Queen's subjects. 
 
 And yet it has this year been asserted by the editor of the 
 ' Lakminipahana,' that although Government has appointed the 
 teaching of modern cosmology, the teachers in the Vidyodaya and 
 other Buddhist colleges, in common with the priests of Burmah, refuse 
 to teach it, as being positively opposed to the teaching of Buddha, 
 who, claiming perfect knowledge on all subjects, declared that this 
 world is flat, day and night being caused by the sun wandering round 
 Mount Meru, which stands in the centre of the great plain. He 
 says that if modern science is true, then a great part of Buddhism is 
 false, therefore the priests in the Buddhist college at Galle are 
 blamed for wishing to get a pundit to teach them this heretical 
 system. 
 
 Seeing the importance which from the earliest days has attached 
 to the possession of anything that could be reverenced as a 
 Buddhistic relic, there was unbounded joy in this college when, at 
 the earnest request of Sumanagala, the Government of Bombay made 
 over to his care certain relics recently excavated from some ancient 
 Indian shrines. These had been placed in the Bombay Museum, 
 and unfortunately, instead of being transmitted from the Museum 
 to the college, they were sent by the Bombay Government to the 
 care of the Ceylon Government, and their despatch and receipt in- 
 timated in official documents — an apparently simple transaction, the 
 importance of which, however, was enormously exaggerated by the 
 recipients, being represented to the Buddhist population as an act of 
 official homage to Gautama, and we all know the oriental tendency 
 to revere whomsoever the king delighteth to honour. Of course the 
 utmost capital is made of every act of simple courtesy on the 
 part of the various distinguished foreigners who show interest in 
 Buddhism or the ancient literature of the East. 
 
 As regards the aforesaid relics, trifling as they are in themselves, 
 the news of their discovery created quite a stir in the Buddhist world, 
 and they are undoubtedly interesting to antiquaries and students of 
 strange objects of veneration, being apparently fragments of the
 
 68 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 identical begging-bowl or gourd in which Gautama Buddha, clad in 
 the yellow robe of a mendicant, collected his daily dole of rice. 
 After his death the bowl was broken, and the fragments were en- 
 shrined in various parts of India. 
 
 The British mendicant, who chooses to depend on the gifts of 
 his more industrious neighbours for his daily bread, is liable to 
 have work provided for him by an unsympathetic police, but our 
 fellow-subjects in the East continue to find religious mendicancy a 
 recognised and honoured profession. As regards the Buddhist 
 priests, however, their vow of poverty is as much a dead letter as 
 are some other vows. Few indeed trouble themselves to collect 
 their daily bread as alms, while many are private land-owners having 
 property quite distinct from that of the temples, and they sue or 
 are sued in British courts of law, like ordinary citizens. 
 
 Mr. J. M. Campbell, of the Bombay Civil Service, in reading an 
 old manuscript on this subject, found so minute a description of 
 the sites of these relic-shrines that he resolved to identify them. 
 First he opened a mound near the village of Sopara on the island 
 of Salsette, twenty miles from Bombay, and therein found an 
 earthenware case containing a copper relic-shrine ; within this lay 
 one of silver containing one of gold, and within that, enshrined in a 
 crystal casket, lay some broken fragments of a gourd. There were 
 also some little images of Buddha. ' 
 
 Three years later, in the ruins of Bassein, he renewed the 
 quest, and found a stone coffer, within which lay a nest of caskets, 
 one inside the other — the innermost one of pure gold, containing 
 several fragments of the bowl, and flowers of gold-leaf. Again Mr. 
 Campbell proceeded to excavate a huge mound near Janagadh in 
 Kattywar, supposed to have been constructed about 150 B.C., and 
 therein discovered another stone coffer containing a series of precious 
 
 1 To a naturalist the most interesting of all these antiquities was a live frog which 
 was found comfortably enclosed in the outer shrine, where it must have lain embedded for 
 about 2,000 years. It was carefully removed with the other treasures, but sad to say, 
 after only two days' enjoyment of its release, it fell a victim to scientific thirst for 
 experiment, a doctor having, for reasons best known to himself, administered a drop 
 of chloroform, whereof it straightway died. Some years ago, when Sir Alexander 
 Gordon Gumming wrote a statement respecting several frogs which were found on his 
 estate deeply embedded in a rocky bank, this letter gave rise to a tempestuous 
 correspondence, in the course of which many very extraordinary but perfectly proven 
 instances were brought forward of similar cases of frog-longevity. One standing 
 proof is the mantelpiece at Chillingham Gastle, in which is shown the hollow wherein 
 ^ live frog was found when the niarble was hewn froni its quarry,
 
 COLOMBO 69 
 
 caskets, the inncfmost onj of gold, containing a fragment of bone 
 the size of a little finger-nail, supposed to have been saved from the 
 funeral pyre of Gautama Buddha. Beside this relic lay four precious 
 stones and two little bits of wood which are assumed to have been 
 amulets. 
 
 Naturally the new and highly educated priesthood who are now 
 being trained at the Vidyodaya College to replace their utterly 
 illiterate and degraded brethren, bless those to whose direct influence 
 and aid they justly ascribe the rekindling of so vigorous a fire from 
 such smouldering embers, and take good care to impress on the 
 minds of the people that the marked honours bestowed on 
 Buddhism are a clear indication of the religious tendencies of their 
 rulers. 
 
 And well may the Singhalese be perplexed when they note the 
 very prominent position assigned at many Government ceremonials 
 to a group of proud, unbending, yellow-robed priests, the Christian 
 clergy having no such definite place. Of these only the Anglican 
 bishop and the three Roman Catholic bishops have the privilege 
 of the private entree to the levee at Government House on the 
 Queen's birthday. That honour is, however, bestowed on a large 
 number of Buddhist priests, the reason of this being, that as these 
 own no superior (not even Buddha himself, since, having attained 
 Nirvana, he is practically non-existent), they refuse any external 
 indication of reverence to the Queen's representative ; therefore 
 they are exempted from mingling in the procession of ordinary 
 mortals, where this peculiarity would be too conspicuous. Strange 
 to say, they have al^O frequently been privileged on State occasions 
 to chant a solemn benediction in Pali, invoking the blessing of 
 Buddha on their friendly rulers, who remained standing during a 
 ceremony which most felt to be singularly out of place. 
 
 Still more incomprehensible to the Singhalese, as a mere act of 
 impartiality, has been the recent official recognition (an innovation 
 assuredly uncalled for) of Buddha's birthday as a general holiday, on 
 the same footing as Christmas Day ! a measure which has done 
 more than anything else to revive popular interest in Buddhism.' 
 Old inhabitants tell us that they have never known this day to be 
 
 1 The Tamil's f^eat holiday is the feast of the New Year, according to Hindoo and 
 Singhalese reckoning. This year it fell on April 12. 
 
 The Mohammedan festival of the Hegira fell on July 17. 
 All these are now officially recognised as general holidays.
 
 70 TPVO JIAPPV YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 observed till, at the instance of certain Englishmen who have formed 
 themselves into a 'Buddhist Defence Committee,' the British 
 Government chose to make it a public holiday. 
 
 To the disgust of the inhabitants of the Fort at Galle, which has 
 been exclusively Christian for the last three hundred years, a house 
 within the Fort was three years ago transformed into a noisy temple, 
 and at the instigation of an English apostate from the Christian 
 priesthood, discordant midnight carols were (for the first time) 
 shrieked in honour of ' our Lord Buddha ' ! The date of this festival 
 is determined by that of the first full moon in Wesak — i.e. April- 
 May — and I observe that this ranges from May 3 in one year to 
 May 25 in another. The festival is observed with an annually 
 increasing show of street decorations (the so-called Buddhist flag, 
 invented by Colonel Olcott, predominating), and processions with 
 banners, images, devil-dancers, beating of drums, tomtoms, and other 
 deafening ecclesiastical music, continuing without intermission from 
 dawn till sunset, and the police have their hands fully occupied in 
 preserving the peace between these now somewhat aggressive pro- 
 cessionists and the native Roman Catholics. 
 
 In fact, in 1883 a very serious riot occurred in Colombo, not in 
 connection with the ' Wesak ' — i.e. Buddha's birthday — but (which 
 may edify theoretic Buddhists !) on the occasion of a seven weeks' 
 festival in honour o{ setting the eyes in a large tiew image of Btiddha 
 reclining., in the Vihara or temple at Kotahena (in Colombo). • 
 
 During all this period a succession of priests were engaged in 
 ceaselessly preaching bana (the discourses of Buddha) and reciting 
 pirit (a formula supposed to avert evil), and on the last day of the 
 festival five hundred priests were to be present in order that the five 
 hundred sections of the ' Tripitaka ' scriptures might be repeated by 
 them in one day, in return for which, each was to be presented with 
 
 1 In Robert Knox's fascinating account of his twenty years of honourable captivity 
 in the heart of Ceylon, from A. D. 1659 to 1680, he describes how religious mendicants 
 carry about a small image of the Buddou, covered with a piece of white cloth. ' For 
 this god, above all others, they seem to have a high respect ; . . . ladies and gentle- 
 men of good quality will sometimes, in a fit of devotion to the Buddou, go a-begging 
 for him. Some will make the image of this god at their own charge. Before the eyes 
 are made, it is not accounted a god, tut a lump of ordinary metal, and thrown about 
 the shop with no more regard than anything else ; but when the eyes are to be made, 
 the artificer is to have a good gratification, besides the first agreed-upon reward.' 
 
 'The eyes being formed, it is thenceforward a god, and then, being 
 brought with honour from the workman's shop, it is dedicated by solemnities and 
 sacrifices, and carried with great state into its shrine or little house, which is before 
 built and prepared for it."
 
 COLOMBO 71 
 
 a set of the ' Atapirikara '•-/.d'. the eight articles which constitute 
 the personal property of a Buddhist priest. These articles, together 
 with food for the assembled priests, were to be offered by the 
 inhabitants of many neighbouring villages, each of which was to bring 
 its gift on a special day, escorted by a noisy religious procession. A 
 bestowal of merit was promised to all who thus adorned themselves 
 with the ornaments of faith. 
 
 Unfortunately this temple (which, though modern, small, and 
 externally insignificant, has recently been highly decorated inter- 
 nally, and has risen to a position of importance in the Buddhist 
 revival) stands within a few hundred yards of the Roman Catholic 
 cathedral,' so that the worshippers therein had full benefit of this 
 prolonged parade of noisy rejoicings, continuing all through Lent. 
 They endured it all peaceably till they realised that these processions 
 were to be continued through Holy Week, when they would 
 inevitably clash with the customary Roman Catholic processions. 
 Moreover, very offensive messages were sent to the Roman Catholics 
 expressing a determination to hold festivals of rejoicing on Good 
 P'riday. 
 
 Application was accordingly made to the authorities to prohibit 
 Buddhist demonstrations during certain hours on Good Friday and 
 Easter Day ; but unfortunately, in the anxiety to please all parties, 
 some confusion arose between the licences already granted and 
 afterwards cancelled, and though no collision occurred, the peace of 
 Good Friday was disturbed by very bitter feeling. On Easter Day, 
 however, the Buddhists were resolved not to forego their procession 
 in honour of some particular phase of the moon. The Roman 
 Catholic congregations had dispersed after morning service, when 
 suddenly the bells of the cathedral and of all the neighbouring 
 Roman Catholic churches were simultaneously set ringing violently. 
 This seems to be a recognised call to assemble for some urgent 
 purpose, and yet, strange to say, all the bells were left unguarded. 
 In a very few minutes an excited mob of the lowest of the Roman 
 Catholics, armed with clubs and marked on the forehead and back 
 with white crosses, quite a la St. Bartholomew, assembled, deter- 
 mined to prevent the procession from passing their cathedral. A 
 
 1 The cathedral premises, about ten acres in extent, were granted to the Church 
 by the Dutch in 1779, but had been occupied by the Roman Catholics long before 
 that date. They comprise the residence of the bishop and priests, the schoolhouse, 
 and convent.
 
 72 riVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 very serious riot ensued, which resulted in one person being killed ; 
 and thirty, incUiding twelve poor police constables, were so seriously 
 injured as to necessitate their being taken to the hospital. 
 
 Most of the ill feeling aroused on this occasion seems to have 
 been due to the irritating and violent language of a notable priest of 
 the Amarapoora sect, Migettuwatte Unnanse, a leading member of 
 Colonel Olcott's Theosophical Society, and a man thoroughly versed 
 in all the anti-Christian literature of England, America, and India — 
 an eloquent man, and a most bitter opponent of the Christian 
 religion, which he strove by every means to bring into contempt and 
 ridicule. He denounced Christianity with such energy, while work- 
 ing with all his might for the extension of Buddhism, that he came 
 to be distinguished as the fighting champion of the Buddhist faith. 
 
 So when he died, in the autumn of 1890, it was deemed fitting to 
 make his funeral the occasion of a great demonstration. His body 
 was embalmed and placed in a coffin with glass sides and lid, in 
 order that crowds might see his face once more, and also to give 
 time for organising a great ceremonial a week later, by which time 
 fully fifteen thousand people from various parts of the Isle had 
 assembled at Colombo to attend the funeral, and all united their 
 processions to form one cnor mows J>ere he ra round the city. 
 
 On Sunday, the 2Sth, this multitude formed a funeral procession 
 more than a mile in length. First came ' the company of the 
 preachers'; then a strong body of tomtom-beaters, followed by a 
 multitude of Singhalese women ; after them twelve of the chief 
 Buddhist priests in very modern jinrikishas, followed by a hundred 
 and thirty minor priests in their yellow robes, all walking beneath a 
 long canopy of white cloth, denoting the honour due to them. Then 
 (more modern innovations) came the Volunteer band playing the 
 Dead March in 'Saul'; and after this a gaudy hearse, containing 
 the coffin and loads of white flowers, was carried on the shoulders of 
 fifty men. 
 
 In these days when the respective advantages of cremation versus 
 interment are so largely discussed, it is interesting to learn that in 
 Ceylon the cleanly aid of fire is, by the Buddhists, reserved as a 
 special honour for a few of the most eminent priests. On the 
 present occasion the funeral pyre had been erected on a rising 
 ground just beyond the General Cemetery — a high erection of palm- 
 trunks, with tall palms at the four corners, supporting a canopy of 
 white cloth. The coffin was deposited in an opening in the centre
 
 COLOMBO 73 
 
 of the pyre, which was then mounted by a succession of priests and 
 laymen, who addressed the kneeUng crowds around. These at each 
 teUing sentence raised their clasped hands heavenward, exclaiming 
 ' Saadu, Saadu ! ' the united voices of this great multitude pro- 
 ducing a deep-toned roar which died away in the distance like the 
 booming of the waves, or the murmur of distant thunder. 
 
 Then, after a solemn chanting and prayer, the pyre was ignited 
 to a loud accompaniment of tomtom-beating, and the crowds 
 reverently watched the work of the flames till at last they reached the 
 white canopy, when all burst into one shout of triumph, this being 
 the symbol of the spirit's full emancipation —i.e. till its next birth in 
 some new state of being. 
 
 Of course a scene so solemn could not but have an incongruous 
 element, which was furnished by an English Buddhist, who could 
 not resist such an opportunity for attracting attention, and so took 
 his place on the pyre ' as the representative of America, Europe, 
 and England,' to deliver a funeral oration (through an interpreter), 
 assuring all present that very soon all America and Europe would 
 receive the faith of Buddha — after which he proved his self-sacrificing 
 devotion to his newly-found faith by tossing his sun-hat on to the 
 blazing pyre, an example which led to the cremation of many good 
 tortoise-shell combs and handkerchiefs ! 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 
 
 Rivers — Lagoons — Noah's Ark — Lake Negombo — Kabragoya— Objections to milk — 
 Insect-pests — Reverential customs — The Luna-Oya — Monkeys — ' Betty.' 
 
 Tkrhaps the most fascinating feature of Ceylonese scenery is the 
 number and the beauty of the rivers, ranging from picturesque 
 mountain torrents (which form cascades and waterfalls as they hurry 
 from their cradle among the rhododendrons) to stately streams, 
 flowing swiftly though silently to meet the thundering surf. 
 
 Their course is so short that their descent from the mountains 
 is necessarily rapid ; consequently very few of these are navigable, 
 except within a few miles of the sea, where flat-bottomed boats and 
 canoes ply. By far the longest river is the Maha-welli-ganga, which, 
 rising near Adam's Peak, wanders through the mountains till it
 
 74 T^^^O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 reaches Kandy, the mountain capital, whence, descending to the 
 plains, it travels northward, a total distance of 134 miles, and finally 
 enters the sea by several branches near Trincomalee. 
 
 Next to this ranks the Kelany-ganga, also called the Mutwal 
 river, which is eighty-four miles long, and which, as we have 
 already seen, flows into the sea near Colombo. All the other rivers 
 of Ceylon are from ten to twenty miles shorter. 
 
 As a natural result of so short and swift a descent from the 
 mountains, these streams are laden with sand and soil, and a very 
 remarkable geographical feature (of which I have already spoken in 
 reference to the formation of the lake at Colombo) is due to the 
 meeting of these surcharged waters with the strong sea-currents, 
 which in the north-east and south-west monsoons sweep along the 
 coast, and are likewise saturated with sand. These prevent the 
 rivers from carrying their earth-freight farther, consequently it is all 
 deposited in sandy bars, which, likewise receiving the deposits of 
 these gulf-streams, rapidly increase, and form such effectual barriers 
 as compel the rivers to flow north or south behind this embankment 
 of their own creation. 
 
 Thus strangely indented lagoons, many miles in length, of still, 
 silent, fresh water, lie separated from the booming surf by only a 
 narrow belt of sand — perhaps only partially carpeted with marine 
 convolvuli, but generally clothed with quaint screw-pines, mangroves, 
 palms, and other trees. The effect of the roar of the unseen surf, as 
 heard while one's boat glides silently on these still rivers embowered 
 in richest vegetation, is very impressive. 
 
 This peculiarity is most strikingly developed on the east side of 
 the Isle, as at Batticaloa, where the rivers have formed one labyrin- 
 thine lagoon fully fifty miles in length, divided from the ocean by an 
 embankment of their own construction, nowhere exceeding a mile 
 and a half in width, and all clothed with cocoa-palms. The same 
 formation extends all the way from Trincomalee to the far north of 
 the Isle. 
 
 These very peculiar estuaries are known as Gobbs, and they were 
 turned to good account by the Dutch, who cut canals to connect 
 some of the most important, and thus formed a continuous calm 
 water-way on each side of the Isle, connecting sea-coast towns. 
 Thus, on the west coast you can travel by these canals and lagoons 
 all the way from Caltura to Colombo, and thence right north up to 
 Kalpitiya. Such delightful house-boats as those in which foreign
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 75 
 
 residents in China make their water-excursions, are here unknown 
 luxuries, but with a Httle contrivance an ordinary flat-bottomed rice- 
 boat may be made to do duty instead, and thus furnishes the means 
 for a very enjoyable cruise. 
 
 Most fortunately for me, soon after my arrival the Bishop had 
 occasion to visit various churches and schools along the coast to the 
 north of Colombo, and resolved to travel by water. He had decided 
 that his daughter should bear him company, and, greatly to my 
 delight, I too was invited to join the expedition. 
 
 I confess that when I think of all the ditificulties in arranging 
 ' house-room ' for guests in luxurious British homes, I often remem- 
 ber with amazement the unselfish kindness which contrives to make 
 the smallest colonial houses so wondrously elastic (exemplifying the 
 good old proverb that 'where there's heart-room there's hearth- 
 room ') ; but never in all my wanderings have I met with so very 
 practical a proof of such hospitality, as that which assigned me an 
 extemporised berth on board ' The Castle Jermyn,' as we dubbed 
 our craft when commencing our voyage, though long ere our return 
 the little ' Noah's Ark ' better described the floating home in which 
 were congregated so great a variety of curious living creatures, to say 
 nothing of the skins of various birds of gay plumage, and animals 
 presented to us by many kind friends. 
 
 The live offerings included six or eight land-tortoises of various 
 sizes, and several large handsome turtles, which shared ' the hinder 
 part of the ship ' with the picturesque Singhalese crew and the 
 Bishop's Singhalese major-domo, and were turned out at night to 
 swim in the shallow water, while our own quarters became the play- 
 ground of a ubiquitous bull-dog puppy and a very young mongoose, 
 so small as to earn from my companions the nickname of 'The Rat.' 
 A more affectionate little pet never existed. It at once recognised 
 me as its special mistress, never seeming so happy as when trotting 
 along beside me, creeping quietly into my lap or nestling on my 
 shoulder, and at night curling itself, uninvited, into one of my 
 slippers, whence the little soft hairy creature darted out to greet me 
 with a gentle little murmurous cry the instant I stirred in the 
 morning. 
 
 It very soon outgrew its slipper-cradle, and when we returned to 
 St. Thomas's College, it selected more roomy sleeping quarters in a 
 dark corner of my room, where it lay rolled up like a furry ball. I 
 fed it principally on bread and milk, and sometimes I could not
 
 76 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 resist giving it an egg as a great treat, though well aware that 1 was 
 therein injudiciously awakening what might prove an inconvenient 
 taste. I do not, however, believe that Goosie ever sinned in this or 
 any other direction. No blame attached to its short happy life. 
 
 My gentle pet rapidly developed to the size of an average cat, its 
 hair, which was partly brown and partly silvery grey, becoming hard 
 and wiry, and although its devotion to me as its adopted mother 
 continued to be most touching, it was occasionally inconvenient. I 
 was therefore not altogether sorry, on my return to Colombo after an 
 absence of some months, to find that ' Goosie ' had transferred its 
 allegiance to the friend in whose care I had left it, and in whose garden 
 it had done valiant combat with several cobras, the plucky little 
 creature having developed all the abhorrence towards these for which 
 its race is so remarkable.' 
 
 ' Soon after my visit to Galle, a villager at Happugalle (about three miles 
 distant) saw a mongoose attack a large cobra. He stated that the combat continued 
 for some time, after which the mongoose, apparently unable to cope with the serpent, 
 beat a hasty retreat to the jungle. Presently he reappeared, accompanied by a grey 
 mongoose. So soon as the cobra perceived the new-comer, he was paralysed with 
 terror and crouched before the mongoose, which rushed forward and snapped off the 
 serpent's head. The Singhalese believe that the small grey mongoose is king of the 
 race. So fully is the skill of the mongoose as a snake-killer established, that I cannot 
 understand why it is not more commonly trained as a domestic pet in countries where 
 these deadly reptiles abound. As a rat-killer it has done splendid service in the West 
 Indies, where the devastation vvrought on sugar, coffee, cocoa, and other plantations 
 by the great rat-army, ranged from _^ioo,ooo to ^^150,000 per annum, till in 1872 Mr. 
 EspeiU happily imported some mongooses direct from India. Four males and five 
 females reached him in safety and were turned out on his estate. In a wonderfully 
 short time they increased and multiplied to such an extent as to overrun the whole 
 island. Thousands of young ones were captured by negroes, and sold to planters in 
 very remote districts, and as these creatures are excellent swimmers and make their 
 way across streams and lagoons, they quickly found their way to every corner. 
 Naturally such prolific colonists have become somewhat of a pest, and the planters are 
 now compelled to thin their ranks. 
 
 In 1884 Ceylon exported 105 mongooses to Australia, there to wage war against 
 the rabbit legions. Well may we wish them success ! 
 
 In Egypt the mongoose [alias ichneumon) is kept as a domestic rat and mouse 
 catcher, and moreover is invaluable from its talent for raking up the sand wherein 
 crocodiles have laid their eggs, to the number of perhaps fifty in a brood, which it 
 devours \\\\h gusto. It also kills many of these little monsters when newly hatched, 
 and is altogether a true benefactor to humanity. The services of ' Pharaoh's Rat ' 
 were so fully recognised by the ancient Egyptians that it was treated as a sacred 
 animal, pampered during life, and divinely honoured after death. Funds were set 
 apart for the support of representatives of the race, which, like the sacred cats, were 
 fed on bread soaked in milk, and fish specially caught for their use by the fishers of 
 the Nile. To kill a mongoose was a criminal act, and whenever one was found dead 
 its mummied remains were carefully laid in the catacombs with the other sacred 
 animals.
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 
 
 77 
 
 Sad to say, it soon fell a victim to its valour ; for, though by its 
 marvellous agility it contrived in several instances to elude the darts 
 of the serpent, the first bite also proved the last — no wise old mon- 
 goose having instructed this poor young one in the healing properties 
 of that herb which, it is said, the wild mongoose eats as an effectual 
 antidote to cobra poison. (This is said to be the Mimosa occandra, 
 which in Ceylon is called the Nakulishta — i.e. ' the desire of the mon* 
 goose.') So my poor Goosie died. But what concerns us at present 
 was only her place in our boat-home, where her infantile sporting 
 instincts found scope in chasing the pretty little lizards which found 
 refuge in the thatched roof. As seen on our first visit, the said boat 
 was not attractive, being dingy, dark, and airless ; but a little inge- 
 
 THE CASTLE JEK.MVN 
 
 nious carpentering soon worked wonders. In the first place, the 
 thatched roof was raised bodily, so as to leave four inches all round, 
 admitting light and air to our sleeping quarters. Then the deck was 
 matted, and the interior was lined with white calico, and divided 
 into compartments, so that we each had our special quarters, with 
 our beds, chairs, tables, hanging-trays and pockets, bags, books, sun- 
 umbrellas, butterfly-nets, writing and sketching materials of all sorts. 
 To these were soon added constantly renewed baskets of fruit — great 
 bunches of green or yellow bananas and plantains, pine-apples, 
 oranges, mangoes, and custard-apples, and ever-increasing stores ot 
 quaint seeds, shells, and divers curiosities. 
 
 The boatmen, who were all fishermen (which is almost equivalent 
 to saying that they were all Roman Catholics), had their quarters 
 astern, as had also the cook and his flock of ducks and hens ; and
 
 78 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 how eight human beings could stow themselves away in so small a 
 space, and carry on their existence so silently, was a marvel. The 
 fact of their being Singhalese secured us against the interminable 
 songs by whicli the Tamils cheer their work, and which in such 
 close quarters would have been unendurable. When they had work 
 to do 'forrard,' they ran lightly over the thatch without disturbing 
 their unwonted passengers, for whom they were never weary of 
 collecting lovely flowers and exquisite climbing ferns, with which we 
 adorned our quarters, devoting one basin to the most gorgeous 
 jungle blossoms — scarlet, white, and gold — and another to dainty 
 water-lilies — white, pink, and blue— while all else found a niche on 
 the foundation of ferns with which we fringed the edge of the 
 movable roof, part of which was constructed to draw backwards 
 or forwards, so that in case of rain our ' sitting-room ' would have 
 been well protected. Happily we were favoured with lovely weather, 
 and so enjoyed to the full the peaceful beauty of both days and 
 nights. 
 
 One flower, which our sympathetic collectors brought with special 
 appreciation, was a most exquisite orchid which they call the Wanna 
 Rajah,' or king of the Wanna or Forest (the comprehensive name 
 given to the great tract of hot and generally arid land in the extreme 
 north of the Isle). On the upper side, the leaves of this orchid are 
 like black velvet veined with gold, while the under side is of a deli- 
 cate pink. The fragrant white blossom hangs on a pink stalk. It 
 seems to flourish specially in marshy localities. 
 
 A tiny canoe (just the trunk of a tree scooped out, and balanced 
 by a log floating alongside of it, attached to it by a couple of 
 bamboos) floated astern, ready to land us at any point where the cool 
 loveliness of the river-banks proved irresistibly tempting ; and 
 strangely fascinating indeed was the deep shadow of the beautiful 
 forest- trees overhanging the clear sunlit waters, the intense silence 
 broken only by the cry of some wild bird, or the deep hootjng of the 
 large wanderoo monkeys, while at short regular intervals came the low 
 roar as of distant thunder, which told of mighty green waves breaking 
 on the sand-reef of their own creation. 
 
 It was in the middle of February that we embarked for the three 
 weeks of ' water-gipysing,' every hour of which proved so full of 
 novelty and interest. A beautiful drive from St. Thomas's College, 
 
 1 Ancectochilus setaceus.
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 79 
 
 Colombo, brought us to the Mutwal river, or Kelany-ganga, where 
 our boat-home awaited us. 
 
 Crossing that broad majestic stream, we entered one of the canals 
 cut by the Dutch, parallel with the sea, and thereon glided smoothly 
 into the wide shallow lake of Negombo, at the north end of which we 
 anchored for the night, at a picturesque village of the same name 
 twenty-three miles from Colombo. 
 
 All along the canal we passed a succession of winding streams and 
 marshy places with special beauties of their own, and several small 
 lagoons — lovely glassy pools — covered with pure white water-lilies, 
 and one variety with petals just tipped with lilac and the under side of 
 the leaf purple. These lakelets are fringed with various species of 
 graceful palms, with an undergrowth of luxuriant ferns and handsome 
 shrubs ; while the marshes are glorified by the rich glossy foliage of 
 the mangrove, with clusters of white blossom and large green fruit 
 resembling oranges, but very poisonous. 
 
 These eventually turn scarlet, as do also the pine-like fruit of the 
 Pandanus or screw-pine (so called from the corkscrew pattern in 
 which its leaves grow from the stem). The roots of this plant are 
 among the oddest vagaries of the vegetable kingdom. Here and 
 there a patch of the flame blossom, called by the Singhalese 
 eribuddti, glowed really like fire as the setting sun shone on its 
 scarlet pea-shaped flowers set in a crown of scarlet leaves. Then 
 there was a sort of prickly acanthus with large blue flowers, also 
 pea-shaped, and a sort of acacia with bright yellow star- shaped 
 blossom. 
 
 Negombo Lake is about four miles in width, and all around us 
 were picturesque canoes, whose owners were diligently fishing in its 
 quiet waters. They have a curious method of frightening fish into 
 the net, which is held by some of the men, while others wave long 
 fringes of torn plantain-leaves or cocoa-palm similar to those which 
 are hung up as decorations at any festival. The fish thus alarmed 
 are expected to jump net-wards. At night the fishers carry a blazing 
 torch downwards, so that the glare is all on the water. The torch 
 consists of a fagot of sticks, and from its centre projects a long sharp 
 knife with which to impale any large fish which is seen resting in the 
 shallows. 
 
 This was our first night on the water, and to our dismay we found 
 that we had neglected to bring our mosquito-nets, an omission which 
 left us all wholly at the mercy of those venomous little insects, who
 
 8o TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 all night long hummed a chorus of delight as they took it by turns 
 to feast on us, their helpless victims. Of course their onslaughts 
 involved a sleepless night and a feverish morning ; but ere the next 
 sunset we extemporised very efficient nets by hanging up rriuslin 
 petticoats, which effectually protected our heads, though an in- 
 cautious foot occasionally revealed itself and suffered accordingly. 
 
 Before sunrise we were once more under way, and, leaving the lake, 
 turned into a most picturesque canal running right through the native 
 town, of houses embowered in large-leaved tropical shrubs, over- 
 shadowed by tall palms, and the water covered with very varied boats 
 and canoes. 
 
 Leaving the town, our quiet water-way still lay beneath over- 
 arching palm-trees, and between banks matted with the dark glossy 
 foliage and large lilac blossoms of the goat's-foot ipomoea, a handsome 
 marine convolvulus which forms a thick carpet, binding the arid 
 sandbanks along the seaboard. 
 
 Presently we crossed the mouth of the Maha-Oya, or great 
 stream, a broad majestic river, gliding silently to join the ocean. It 
 was a vision of wonderful peace to look along its calm waters to the 
 equally calm ocean, whose margin was only defined by the periodical 
 uprising of a great green rolling wave which broke in dazzling white 
 surf with a deep booming roar. 
 
 That strange solemn sound continued for hours to reach us from 
 the unseen ocean, as, turning into the Ging-Oya, another most lovely 
 stream, we followed its windings, almost parallel with the sea, which 
 yet was effectually hidden by a narrow bank of luxuriant jungle, and 
 tall palms which cast their cool deep shade on the glassy waters. But 
 for that ever-recurring reminder of 
 
 ' The league-long rollers thundering on the shore," 
 
 there was not a sound to break the silence, save only the rustle of dry 
 reeds or the gentle ripple of our boat sailing with a light breeze. 
 Even the shy creatures which haunt these banks were undisturbed, 
 and amongst others we observed several large iguanas (or, as the 
 Singhalese call them, kabragoya), huge lizards from five to six feet in 
 length. Though very prettily marked, they are ungainly-looking 
 creatures, and I confess to having felt somewhat qualmish the first time 
 I came suddenly upon one in the forest ; but they are quite harmless 
 if unmolested. They have, however, a good weapon of defence in 
 their strong tail, with which they can inflict a blow not quickly
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN Z\ 
 
 forgotten. They feed on ants and insects, and are amphibious — 
 being equally at home on marshy ground or in the water. 
 
 Another lizard very nearly as large, called Talla-goya, is so tame 
 that it scarcely moves away from human beings, and even comes 
 and lives in gardens, though it thereby courts its doom — its flesh 
 being considered as delicate as that of a rabbit, and its skin being 
 in request for shoemaking. Certainly its appearance is not pre- 
 possessing. 
 
 We caught glimpses of various smaller lizards, especially a lovely 
 bright green one about a foot in length. Strange to say, when angry, 
 these creatures turn pale yellow, and the head becomes bright red. 
 I believe they are akin to the ever-changing chameleon, which, 
 however, prefers the dry districts farther to the north of the Isle. 
 
 Glorious large butterflies skimmed lightly over the water — some 
 with wings like black velvet, and others of the most lustrous metallic 
 blue ; and kingfishers, golden orioles, and other birds of radiant 
 plumage, flitted over the waters. One bird something like a plover is 
 known as the ' Did he do it ? ' because of its quaint inquisitive cry, 
 which seems ceaselessly to reiterate this question. 
 
 As the evening came on, we were treated to a concert of croaking 
 frogs, and jackals alternately barking and calling in eerie tones. 
 Finally we anchored for the night beneath an overhanging tree which 
 was evidently specially favoured by the fire-flies, for their tiny green 
 lamps glittered in every corner of the dark foliage, ceaselessly flashing 
 to and fro in such mazy dance, that when we looked beyond them to 
 the quiet stars, it seemed to our bewildered eyes as if these too were 
 in motion ! I use the word fire-flies in deference to a common error. 
 In reality these fairy light-bearers are tiny beetles which carry their 
 dainty green lantern beneath the tail, and veil or unveil its light at 
 pleasure, as a policeman does his bull's-eye lantern — hence the 
 intermittent light which vanishes and reappears several times in a 
 minute. 
 
 On the following morning a kind European heard of our arrival 
 and brought us most welcome gifts of fruit and milk. Strange to 
 say, the Singhalese have an invincible objection to milking their cows, 
 even when they possess large herds of cattle, and the calves might 
 very well spare a certain amount. This prejudice has been in a 
 measure conquered in the immediate neighbourhood of towns where 
 foreigners require a regular supply ; but (like the Chinese) no Singha- 
 lese man, woman, or child seems ever to drink cow's milk, though a 
 
 G
 
 82 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 little is occasionally used in the form of curds and eaten with ghee^ 
 which is a sort of rancid butter. 
 
 From the Ging-Oya we passed by a short canal into the Luna- 
 Oya, another even more lovely river ; but first we crossed a fascina- 
 ting lagoon literally covered with water-lilies of various size and 
 colour — small white ones, larger ones like cups of creamy ivory, with 
 green calyx ; exquisite pink lilies with brown calyx, and the under 
 side of the leaf of a' rich purple. Besides these, there were myriads 
 of tiny white blossoms no bigger than a silver penny, which, together 
 with their flat floating leaves, were so like liliputian Ulies, that we 
 could scarcely believe they were not, till we pulled up a cluster and 
 found that leaves and flowers all grew in a bunch from one little 
 rootlet near the surface, instead of each having its own stem, three 
 or four feet in length, and smooth as a piece of indiarubber tubing, 
 rising from the bed of the lake. 
 
 Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention ; and great was 
 my satisfaction when, having lost my black hair-ribbon, I found that 
 one of these half-dried stems answered the purpose admirably, being 
 rather elastic and perfectly flexible. But the water-gipsies soon dis- 
 covered many such treasures in the jungle. The smooth tendrils 
 and filaments of various climbing plants supplied us with excellent 
 string several yards in length ; indeed, we found lianas as thin as 
 thread, and quite as pliant, hanging without a twist or a knot from 
 the top of the tallest trees ; and as to pins, we had only to select the 
 length we required from the too abundant supply of needle-like 
 thorns, which in truth are so marked a characteristic of the Ceylonese 
 forest, that one might almost accept it as a proof that here indeed 
 was the original Paradise — for notwithstanding all its wonderful 
 beauty, Ceylon assuredly bears a double share of the curse anent 
 thorns and briers ! 
 
 We soon discovered that most of the jungle flowers we saw and 
 coveted were thus guarded — the jessamine-like stars of crimson 
 ixora, the fragrant blossoms of the wild lemon, and many another. 
 There is even one sort of palm whose whole stem bristles with long 
 sharp needles. And besides these dangers, we soon discovered that 
 almost every branch of every flowering shrub is the home of a colony 
 of large red ants, who glue the leaves together, entirely concealing 
 their nests ; so that, however carefully you may have looked for them, 
 no sooner do you venture cautiously to gather the flower which 
 tempts you, than in a moment a legion of vicious red ants rush forth
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 83 
 
 from their ambush, and covering your unwary arm, swarm into the 
 innermost recesses of your sleeve, all the time biting most painfully. 
 What with ants biting and mosquitoes and small sand-flies feasting 
 on us, we certainly suffered a good deal, the irritation produced being 
 such that we had simply to take our hairbrushes and brush our poor 
 arms and shoulders to try and counteract it. 
 
 Another fruitful source of irritation was ' prickly heat,' which is 
 the effect produced on many people by constant perspiration. The 
 sufferer receives no pity, as he is told it is the best safeguard against 
 fever ; but nevertheless the discomfort is excessive, and various 
 remedies are recommended, of which the simplest, and, I think, the 
 most efficacious, is every morning to rub one's self all over with 
 limes, cut in half, and presently sponge off the healing juice. A 
 thin solution of either alum or powdered borax applied with a feather 
 is also beneficial — a piece of alum the size of a walnut, dissolved in 
 a pint of water, being sufficient to last several days.' 
 
 We were very fortunate in escaping more serious dangers. One 
 evening, as we sat on deck in the bright starlight, I suddenly 
 observed a gruesome centipede, fully seven inches long, coiled up in 
 my lap ! With sudden impulse the Bishop flicked it with his hand- 
 kerchief, when it fell to the deck and escaped, leaving us with a 
 horribly all-overish sensation of centipedes in every corner. Happily 
 neither it nor any of its family favoured us with another visit. It 
 is really wonderful, in a country where venomous creatures abound 
 as they do in Ceylon, how very rarely one sees any of them, and 
 how quickly one acquires the instinctive habit of beating the grass 
 or withered leaves before one's steps, in order to warn possible 
 snakes to wriggle out of the way, which they seem always ready to 
 do if they have time. Indeed, the mere vibration of a booted foot- 
 step generally suffices to give them the alarm — the sufferers from 
 snake-bite being almost invariably barefooted natives, whose silent 
 approach is unnoticed. 
 
 On the other hand, the land leeches, which swarm in damp 
 places and luxuriant grass, have no tendency to fly from man. On 
 the contrary, the footfall of man or beast is as a welcome dinner- 
 bell, at sound of which the hungry little creatures hurry from all sides ; 
 and as each is furnished with five pair of eyes, they can keep a 
 sharp look-out for their prey, which they do by resting on the tip 
 
 I If there is abrasion of the skin, equal parts of oxide of zinc and carbonate of 
 mafjnesia is very soothing. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 TIFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 of the tail, and raising themselves perpendicularly to look around. 
 Then, arching their body head-foremost, and bringing up the tail, 
 they rapidly make for their victim. Being only about an inch long, 
 and no thicker than a stout pin, they contrive to wriggle through 
 stockings, and commence their attack so gently that several may be 
 feasting without attracting attention, till being gorged, and distended 
 to about a couple of inches in length, and the size of a quill-pen, they 
 cease sucking ; but blood sometimes continues to flow till checked 
 by a squeeze of lemon-juice. 
 
 In this respect also we fortunately suffered little, thanks to con- 
 stant watchfulness and precautions, but our bare-legged coolies 
 were cruelly victimised ; and we saw both cattle and dogs terribly 
 worried by a much larger leech, which infests the tanks and attacks 
 all animals coming to drink, attaching themselves to the muzzle, and 
 thence passing into the nostrils and throat. But on our river voyage 
 we were free from these pests. 
 
 Speaking of the ready-made treasures of the jungle in the way 
 of needles and thread, I must not forget the Rita gaha, or sack-tree, 
 the bark of which literally supplies all but ready-made sacks of a 
 thick texture, akin to felt. The tree having been felled, its branches 
 are cut up into logs, each about the size of sack required. The 
 logs are sometimes soaked in water for a while to soften the bark. 
 This, however, is not invariable. In any case, the bark is beaten 
 with a wooden mallet till it can be turned inside out, and drawn oft 
 as a serpent casts his skin. 
 
 All that is needed to complete these nature-woven sacks is that 
 they should be sewn up at one end. They are so durable that they 
 last for years, and so elastic that they stretch considerably with use, 
 without, however, losing strength. So you see the jungle fairy-god- 
 mothers really do provide most useful treasures ! 
 
 Just before leaving the canal which connects the Ging-Oya with 
 the Lily Lake, we halted at a village where we saw a Singhalese 
 wedding procession, the attentive bridegroom (whose knot of glossy 
 back hair was, of course, fastened by a very large tortoise-shell comb, 
 besides a circular comb on the forehead) holding a large umbrella 
 over a very sedate-looking bride, who walked beside him dressed in 
 brocade, with a wreath on the back of the head, and the hair fastened 
 with golden pins and a golden comb. This bridal dress, however, 
 was not becoming, and we awarded the palm of beauty to a young 
 girl in white, shading herself with a large banana leaf.
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 85 
 
 The people crowded to the banks to see the novel sight of Euro- 
 pean ladies travelling in a padda-boat. • Most of the children were 
 dressed with the elegant simplicity of our ancestors in the original 
 Eden, except that some were adorned with one pearl tied round the 
 arm as an amulet, while others for the same purpose wear a tiny tin 
 cylinder containing some fetish, fastened to the waist. The little 
 Roman Catholics are generally distinguished by a small crucifix or 
 locket with dedication to some saint, but many wear tiny bits of 
 embroidered rag which are sold by the priests as charms ! 
 
 Nowhere have I seen more fascinating little children with such 
 soft lovely brown eyes — coming so coaxingly to offer us gifts of 
 flowers ; and their mellifluous speech is as attractive as their personal 
 appearance. One handsome man brought his beautiful little girl and 
 asked us to sketch her. She was quite naked, but a few minutes 
 later he brought her back in all the magnificence of her green jacket 
 and red skirt, with coral necklace and ear-rings. As the proud 
 father brought her on board, his own long silky black hair got unfas- 
 tened, and fell in rich masses over his shoulders. The effect was 
 most artistic, but unfortunately in Ceylon it is not considered respect- 
 ful to wear the hair hanging down in presence of a superior, so it is 
 always coiled up in a knot. (In China it is just the contrary — the 
 man who, for convenience while working, twists his long black 
 plait round his head, must always let it down in presence of any 
 superior.) 
 
 In this island where the two races, Tamfl and Singhalese, meet one 
 at every turn, one is sometimes struck by a curious point of difference 
 in their symbols of respect. The Tamil must cover his head in pre- 
 sence of a superior, and an extra large turban indicates extra rever- 
 ence. The Singhalese, on the contrary, should appear bareheaded : 
 so when a person of any recognised rank approaches, the Tamils, 
 who have been sitting with bare shaven heads, quickly twist on the 
 long strips of cloth which form their turbans ; whereas the Singhalese, 
 who perhaps have let down their hair and thrown a bright-coloured 
 handkerchief over it, quickly pull off the handkerchief and twist up 
 their hair as if they were going to bathe. 
 
 In old days, under native rule, Singhalese of certain low castes 
 were prohibited from wearing any covering above the waist, and any 
 one presuming to do so was liable to have his or her raiment torn off 
 
 ' Rice-cargo-boat.
 
 86 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 by order of any person of higher station. Even those of the highest 
 caste threw off their upper garments on entering a temple, covered 
 shoulders being then deemed as irreverent as we should consider it 
 for a man to wear a hat in church. 
 
 But these old customs are happily traditions of the past, as are 
 also in a great measure the objectionable features of caste distinc- 
 tions, which here are far less obtrusive than in India, even among the 
 Tamils. 
 
 Long years of intercourse between these two races has in some 
 respects tended to assimilation, most obviously in that all Tamil 
 women go about bareheaded like the Singhalese, an innovation very 
 remarkable in contrast with their strictly veiled sisters on the main- 
 land. Happily they retain their graceful drapery in preference to 
 the little white jacket and tight loin-cloth invariably worn by the 
 Singhalese women. 
 
 Our sail up the Luna-Oya was lovely as a fairy dream, the banks 
 on either side being clothed with richest jungle — great forest-trees 
 overhanging the still waters, and matted with festoons of luxuriant 
 creepers, whose exquisite emerald green glorified the darker foliage 
 of the trees. Especially rich were the masses of a plant suggestive 
 of Virginia creeper, and brightened here and there with a touch of 
 scarlet, which, however, in Ceylon tells not of autumn and approach- 
 ing death, but of spring and fresh young foliage. There are some 
 trees which, on first bursting into young leaf, are a blaze of glorious 
 scarlet or crimson, and then gradually turn to gold or chocolate 
 colour, finally assuming varied shades of green. 
 
 Here and there we came on clumps of cocoa-nut palms, and then 
 we always looked out for picturesque huts well-nigh hidden by the 
 long waving leaves of the banana, tall sugar-canes, and the very long 
 fronds of young palms — for, according to Singhalese lore, this 
 friendly palm can only flourish within sound of the human voice, 
 and near the sea. This pretty theory is not strictly borne out by 
 facts, as there are flourishing cocoa-nut groves at various places (such 
 as at Badulla, Matale, and Gampola), at elevations of from 1,400 to 
 2,200 feet above the sea-level, and a hundred miles inland. Still 
 these are exceptions, and certainly all the finest plantations of cocoa- 
 palm lie along the shore in a belt of less than fifteen miles in width. 
 
 We noted a curious method of marking boundaries by planting 
 two cocoa-nuts in one hole, so that they grow up as twins. We also 
 saw curiously wedded palmyra-palms and banyan-trees ; seeds of the
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 87 
 
 latter contrive to niche themselves in the rough bark of the former, 
 and tlieir enfolding roots soon form a network encompassing the 
 parent trees. Ere long these grow so powerful that the palm is 
 killed, and the strange pillar of white roots and branches stands 
 alone — a monument of ingratitude. 
 
 As we floated on through the deep jungly shade, we occasionally 
 met picturesque fishing-boats and canoes, which formed most attrac- 
 tive foregrounds. Specially so was a large double canoe — namely, 
 two canoes floating side by side, supporting one wide deck with 
 heavy thatch, and laden with huge clusters of green plantains. The 
 fine bronze figures of the crew with blue-brown shadows, the dark 
 quilted sail, and darker reflections, made an ideal study in browns ; 
 indeed an artist might make his fortune in painting the groups which 
 present themselves at every turn ; no need for paid models here, 
 where every careless attitude seems naturally graceful, and where 
 tailors and broadcloth are of no account, for a fisherman's full dress 
 consists of either a large straw hat or a bright-coloured handkerchief 
 thrown loosely over black flowing locks, a second handkerchief fas- 
 tened round the loins, and a crucifix or medallion of some saint worn 
 round the neck. 
 
 Such figures as these, whether seen against the clear blue sky or 
 the dark sail, are always harmonious. On gala days many wear a 
 large handkerchief over one shoulder with a picture of the Virgin 
 and Child or full-faced portrait of the Pope. Others display pictures 
 of the Derby Race, or some such exciting European scene ! 
 
 This night we anchored beneath a Suriya tree, covered with 
 blossoms. Vivid sheet-lightning illumined the sky and the forest, 
 even wakening up theold Wanderoos,' who hooted their indignation. 
 These are rather small, very grave, bearded monkeys, the patriarchs 
 of the race, of the most venerable appearance, clothed in thick, dark 
 iron-grey hair, with a rough shaggy white beard, and a thick fringe of 
 white hair on their head. Some species, however, are grey, with 
 black beards. They go about in troops of twenty or thirty, swinging 
 from branch to branch, and carrying their neat little babies. They 
 are very easily tamed, and some have been taken to visit sacred 
 monkey-shrines in India, where they are held in special honour 
 because of their grave demeanour. Their deep-toned sobbing cry, 
 as we so often heard it resounding through the silent forest in the 
 
 1 Fresbytes cephaloptenis,
 
 88 TJl'O IIAPPV YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 stillness of early dawn (albeit I can only describe it as something 
 like that of our common donkey !), was most eerie, blending with 
 the shrill cries of all manner of birds, whose voices for the most part 
 are as discordant as their plumage is radiant. To this sweeping 
 assertion, however, I must make one exception in favour of a very 
 pretty wood-pigeon,' whose low, melodious cooing is one of the most 
 soothing influences of the forest. 
 
 Of the five varieties of the great monkey clan, which are found in 
 Ceylon, four are classed as Wanderoos : the largest and most power- 
 ful of this family are found only in the mountain forests. The fifth 
 Ceylonese monkey is the Rilawa : these are very small, of a warm 
 russet colour, with a pale very human little face, and a shock head, 
 with hair projecting like a thatch, or sometimes so long as to resem- 
 ble that of a miniature human being. When tamed they make 
 charming little pets. On one of his forest-rides the Bishop captured 
 a baby one, which he brought home, and which became a most 
 amusing and affectionate member of the family. 
 
 Its own relations, having been disturbed by the approach of the 
 riders, scampered off among the branches, in such hot haste that 
 this poor little one, who was clinging to its mother, dropped on the 
 ground in front of the Bishop's horse. The ' horse-keeper ' (i.e. a 
 running groom) picked it up and handed it to the Bishop, to whom 
 it immediately cuddled up for protection, nestling inside his coat, 
 where it lay comfortably till he reached a rest-house, where it was fed 
 and cared for. 
 
 Curiously enough, that very afternoon a native from a neighbour- 
 ing village brought the Bishop an offering of fruit and flowers, and 
 also of a small monkey of the same sort. The two little creatures 
 were overjoyed at meeting, and at once rolled themselves together 
 into a ball, as if determined that henceforth no one should separate 
 them ; so the two were slung, with other goods and chattels, from a 
 stick over a man's shoulder, and so were carried to St. Thomas's 
 College, W'here they received the names of ' Boots ' and ' Betty,' and 
 lived happily together, till one sad day when Boots unhappily choked 
 himself by too greedily devouring the hard seeds of a jak fruit. 
 After that poor little Betty had to console herself with her human 
 friends, and was always specially devoted to the Bishop. 
 
 A very strange thing concerning the monkey tribes is, that the 
 
 \ Called by the Singhalese Neela-cobeya,
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 89 
 
 bodies of those which must surely die are never found. Whether the 
 survivors give them decent burial, I cannot say, but both in India 
 and in Ceylon there is a saying to the effect that the man who sees a 
 dead monkey, a nest of the Padda-bird,' or a straight cocoa-palm, 
 will never die. To this list might be added a dead elephant ; for, 
 strange to say, these huge creatures likewise contrive so to dispose of 
 their dead, that, with the exception of some which have died from 
 bullet-wounds, their remains are never found in the jungle. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 
 
 Hedgehog-grass — Strychnine— Snake temples — Kalpitiya — Orchilla dye — Bcche de 
 mcr — Edible birds' nests — Cashew-nuts — Karative salt-pans — Puttalam — Fish- 
 market — Roman Catholic fishermen — St. Anna — Negombo — Banyan-trees — 
 Cinnamon-collectors. 
 
 Again passing through a short connecting-canal, we crossed the 
 mouth of the Dedroo-Oya, a fine wide stream, calm as the ocean into 
 which it flowed, and contrasting strangely with the majestic green 
 wave which ever and anon rose as if by magic to fall with a thunderous 
 roar in a cataract of dazzling surf. 
 
 We never missed any opportunity of landing to collect whatever 
 treasures we might chance to find, of marsh or jungle, river or sea ; 
 so here we landed on the sands and picked up — not shells, but a 
 great variety of seeds, large and small, rough and smooth, dropped 
 into the river by forest-trees and creeping plants (chiefly gigantic 
 beans), and thus carried to the ocean, to be thence thrown back on 
 the land far from their birthplace. 
 
 But the most curious objects in our collection of seeds were the 
 large circular heads which contain those of the aptly-named hedge- 
 hog-grass, or Spinifcx squarrosus. These are light balls, often from 
 ten to twelve inches in diameter, composed of long spines radiating 
 from the seed-bearing centre. When these are mature they drop 
 from the plant, and the wind blows them like wheels for miles along 
 the shore, or maybe across rivers and lagoons, dropping many seeds 
 on their way, but retaining some to the last, and thus carry the first 
 
 ^ Ardeola leucopfera.
 
 90 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 promise of future fertility to the newest and most arid sandbanks, 
 which they bind together much in the same way as does the abundant 
 hlac convolvulus. 
 
 A very marked feature of the vegetation along the coast is a 
 handsome tree • with luxuriant dark foliage and most inviting-looking 
 fruit like golden oranges. But woe be to the rash lips which would 
 approach those tempting fruits, for within them, embedded in pulp, 
 lie the seeds which yield strychnine, the deadliest of poisons ! 
 Somewhat on homoeopathic principles, some of the Tamil coolies are 
 said actually to accustom themselves to eat a small portion of a seed 
 every day, not as an intoxicant (though it is said that in India these 
 seeds are sometimes used for that purpose in the adulteration of 
 arrack), but as an antidote against a possible bite from a cobra. 
 
 Strange to say, the only other member of the strychnine family ^ 
 yields seeds which are invaluable in districts where the water is muddy, 
 for by rubbing the inside of the chatty with one of these all impurities 
 are very soon precipitated, and the water remains quite clear. Never- 
 theless, the part of wisdom in jungle travelling is never to drink water 
 which has not been both boiled and filtered. 
 
 Leaving the Dedroo-Oya, we passed into a smaller stream, and 
 then into a succession of lagoons with sandy banks clothed with a 
 plant resembling our own broom in the profusion of its yellow 
 blossoms. For a while our water-way lay through very desolate 
 country. No more luxuriant ferns or tall quivering reeds, but eerie- 
 looking screw-pines, with their scarlet fruit peeping from odd bunches 
 of sword-like leaves, and their labyrinth of strangely contorted roots. 
 These, and strange cacti from fifteen to twenty- five feet in height, 
 with yellow blossoms tipping their thorny arms, stood out black 
 against the red sunset sky, a most uncanny-looking scene. Here, 
 however, we anchored for the night, and found compensation for 
 the poverty of vegetation in a delightful absence of bloodthirsty 
 mosquitoes, from whose attacks we generally suffered considerably. 
 
 Emerging from the river Moondalani, we entered the long wide 
 lake or gobb, which eventually enters the sea above Kalpitiya, and 
 here saw great flocks of white cranes and Padda-birds. Unlike the 
 graceful white bird so called in India, the Ceylonese Padda-bird has 
 brown wings and back, only showing white when flying. Dark glossy 
 
 1 Strychnos nux-votnica. 
 
 2 Strychnos potatorum, called by the Tamils tettcui-cotta, and by the Singhalese
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 91 
 
 lotus-leaves floated on the shining waters, with blossoms silvery, golden, 
 roseate, and azure, and in those dainty cups bright dewdrops glistened 
 like fairy gems. 
 
 For about five miles we sailed on this calm peaceful lake, then 
 passed into the usual chain of bits of rivers connected by short canals. 
 We landed in a lovely jungle, and brought back loads of flowers to 
 decorate our boat-home, and bright scarlet and black seeds of the 
 Olinda, a jungle creeper ; but all these treasures were gathered at the 
 cost of many sharp bites from ants, and tears from cruel thorns 
 which pierced our thickest boots and tore our dresses, although mine 
 was of good strong serge. 
 
 The boatmen (ever on the alert to find wayside treasures for us) 
 brought us curious seeds of the Naga-darana or 'snake's fangs,' so 
 called from having sharp curved points like teeth, which inflict a very 
 painful scratch. These, together with little bowls of milk, are offered 
 to snakes by persons who wish to propitiate them ; for although 
 serpent-worship no longer holds so prominent a place in Ceylon as 
 it did of yore when the Isle was described as Naga-dwipa, 'The 
 Snake's Isle,' quite as often as Lanka-dwipa, ' The Happy Isle,' the 
 old reverence for the Naga is by no means extinct.^ Till quite recently 
 there was a very ancient snake-temple on the small isle of Nainativoe 
 near Jaffna, where live cobras were devoutly tended by reverent 
 priests and priestesses. Those slippery gods still reign in the cobra 
 temple on Iranative, the twin's isle, a little farther south ; but their 
 shrine is said to have been seriously damaged by the great cyclone 
 in November 1884, which swept the whole coast with such appalling 
 fury that on one small island alone 2,500 palm-trees were uprooted, 
 and about 800 head of cattle and sheep were killed. 
 
 I heard of another snake temple at Badulla, where, so recently as 
 1850, my informant had seen live serpents gliding about at large and 
 reverently worshipped. At another temple in ihe same town there is a 
 stone on which is sculptured a short thick serpent with a head at each 
 end, which stone is said to possess magic virtue in healing broken 
 bones. - 
 
 In Southern India persons suffering from leprosy or ophthalmia, 
 or who are childless, believe these woes to be the penalty for having 
 killed a cobra, either in this life or in some previous state of existence. 
 
 1 See Chapter XII., Tree and Serpent Worship. 
 
 - For kindred serpent-lore in Scotland, see In the Hebrides, by C. F. Gordon 
 Cumming, page 54, Published by Chatto & Windus,
 
 92 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 So they take earth from a serpent's hole, and therewith rub the leprous 
 spot, or if possible they make pilgrimage to a serpent-shrine, and lying 
 down prostrate on the ground, wriggle round the shrine several times, 
 imitating the gliding motion of a serpent. They then present as 
 their offering a small image of Siva, with a five-headed snake forming 
 his canopy. 
 
 Doubtless in Ceylon also, a lingering belief in the supernatural 
 power of the serpent is by no means extinct ; but the special reverence 
 accorded to the cobra, even by Singhalese Buddhists, is accounted for 
 by the legend of its having, by expanding its uplifted hood, sheltered 
 Buddha from the scorching sun when he lay down to rest. Hence 
 the images of Buddha are frequently canopied by a five or seven- 
 headed hooded snake. 
 
 Among the various traces of this strange worship, one which 
 greatly impressed me was a remarkable rock-sculpture at Mehintale 
 (near Anuradhapura), representing a great five-headed cobra rising from 
 a dark pool near the summit of the mountain. There was something 
 strangely weird in this most reverend creature with his expanded 
 hood, guarding the pool on which floated such pure white water-lilies. 
 
 Happily the Kandyans hold the cobra only in honour, under the 
 belief that he is beneficent to man. All other venomous snakes are 
 not only killed, but hung up by the neck, partly as a mark of in- 
 dignity, but also to avert the danger of any passer-by walking on 
 them unawares, and possibly being scratched by their poison-fangs. 
 If a fire is available they cremate the corpse to ensure its not reviving. 
 
 But in the maritime provinces the traces of the ancient Naga-wor- 
 ship are not confined to the cobra, for Singhalese and Tamils alike are 
 extremely averse to killing any serpent. If possible, they coax them 
 into covered wicker-baskets, and float them down some stream, trust- 
 ing that they may land in safety elsewhere. One of our friends, who 
 occupied a charming house near the mouth of the Kelani River, men- 
 tioned, as a serious drawback to the situation, the number of these 
 frail arks containing cobras, tic-polongas, and other deadly snakes, 
 which the natives reverentially launched at various points up the river, 
 and which the eddying currents too frequently landed among the great 
 clumps of bamboo and overhanging shrubs, whence they invaded the 
 garden at pleasure. 
 
 The professional snake-charmers, who go about with a basket full 
 of these wriggling reptiles for exhibition, are all Tamils, but some of 
 the Singhalese are said to do a little domestic serpent-taming. A very
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMVN 93 
 
 curious instance of this was recorded by Major Skinner in 1858, at 
 which time a certain rich man living near Negombo, and whohkedto 
 keep his money in his own house, protected it by keeping tame cobras 
 ghding about as other folk keep watch-dogs. These discriminating 
 creatures were warranted only to molest would-be thieves, and never 
 injured any of the family. This was said to be by no means a unique 
 case. 
 
 Though I cannot say that cobras seem to me attractive pets, I 
 confess to some sympathy with those natives who make friends with 
 the useful rat-snakes who take up their abode in the thatch, and do 
 their best to clear the house of vermin. These are occasionally so 
 tame as to come when summoned to share a family meal ! 
 
 Saturday night found us on a swampy lake, bordered with thickets 
 of great tree-cacti of several sorts. Again the sun sank in fiery red, 
 and the weird arms of the cacti seemed black as ebony against that 
 scarlet glow, which rapidly gave place to the briefest twilight, during 
 which flocks of wild-fowl rose from their feeding-grounds on the quiet 
 lake. 
 
 In this strange spot we spent a peaceful Sunday, and on the mor- 
 row a short sail brought us to the town of Puttalam, eighty-five miles 
 from Colombo. It is a large village on the flat shores of the shallow 
 gulf, and the country inland is likewise flat, with low thorny jungle 
 and swampy rice-fields, sluggish streams and crocodile-haunted tanks. 
 We wandered for some hours on the shore and in the native bazaar, 
 then again set sail and travelled northward all night up the long 
 sea-lake, till we reached Kalpitiya, formerly called Calpentyn, 
 where a dreary old fort tells of the days when the Dutch ruled in 
 the Isle. 
 
 Here as elsewhere in Ceylon, I was struck by the remarkable ugli- 
 ness of the mosque, so inferior to even the humblest of those in India. 
 These have no tall minarets, nor does the call of the muezzin summon 
 the faithful to pray ; indeed, though the Moormen {i.e. the Moham- 
 medans) are a very important body in Ceylon, I have never seen them 
 pause in work at sunrise and sunset to observe the hours of prayer, 
 which is so marked a practice of their brethren in other lands. It is, 
 however, worthy of note, that during the period of wholesale nominal 
 conversions under the Portuguese and Dutch rule, there is no record 
 of a single Moorman having professed the creed of the conqueror. 
 
 Mohanmiedanism is, however, so unobtrusive here, that I noted 
 with special interest the lights which at nightfall gleamed on all the
 
 94 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CPZYLON 
 
 tombs near the mosque, and which we were told are kindled every 
 Tuesday and Thursday night in memory of the dead. 
 
 Nature su[)plemented this [)oetic illumination, for the water was 
 brilliantly phosphorescent, and every ripple that broke upon the shore, 
 or in the wake of boats or canoes, flashed in lovely light like gleam- 
 ing steel. Of the many infinitesimal creatures to whom we were 
 indebted for this soft radiance, one outshone all its fellows — namely, 
 a water-gnat, which skimmed lightly over the surface like a marine 
 meteor, leaving a trail of fairy-like green light. This fascinating 
 display was repeated night after night, the most vivid of all being on 
 the lake at Negombo, where the phosphorescence took the form of 
 little balls like white electric light, and when my bath was filled in the 
 dark cabin, I found I was sitting in luminous water. That night the 
 air was full of electricity, forked and sheet lightning by turns illumined 
 the dark heaven, and I wondered whether the sea could be affected 
 by the same cause. 
 
 Yet another detail in the varied illumination was supplied by the 
 blazing torches of many fishermen, torches of plaited palm-leaf, by the 
 light of which they spear fish with a seven-pronged fork, or sometimes 
 capture them by dropping a basket over them, as, bewildered by the 
 glare, they lie still on the bed of the shallow lake. Close to us, 
 secured by a huge wooden anchor, lay a very picturesque vessel laden 
 with rice and salt. Her crew of Moormen spent most of the night 
 monotonously chanting verses of the Koran, which did not soothe our 
 slumbers. 
 
 On the morrow the Bishop held service, first in English and after- 
 wards in Tamil, in a solid but exceedingly ugly old Dutch church ; 
 the English-speaking congregation consisting chiefly of the " Burgher " 
 descendants of those same Dutch colonists. 
 
 In the evening we landed on a small island clothed with dense 
 jungle and masses of exquisite blue blossoms of the clitoria. We 
 watched with much interest the movements of a sea-snake putting up 
 its head to breathe ; but we were careful to keep at a safe distance, 
 noany sea-snakes being venomous, though we were assured that all 
 those living in fresh water are harmless. 
 
 On the beach natives were filling sacks with a gelatinous seaweed 
 which answers the purpose of isinglass, while others were collecting 
 off the rocks and trees a pale-grey lichen like tattered ribbons, 
 called orchilla,^ from which a rich blue dye is obtained. This lichen 
 
 ' Ruccella Montagnei.
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMVN 95 
 
 has long been imported to England from the coast of Zanzibar and 
 South America, but it is only within the last quarter of a century that 
 its existence in Ceylon has been known : once recognised, however, 
 it has been so eagerly collected that, being a slow-growing plant, it has 
 been greatly reduced in quantity, and the annual export has fallen 
 from 1,200 cwt. to about 450 cwt. 
 
 Here and there on the shore were piles of bleached corals, such as 
 many a British collector would prize ; but which here were only wait- 
 ing to be burnt, and so converted into lime for chewing with betel 
 and areca (that most obnoxious habit which makes the whole popula- 
 tion seem to be constantly spitting blood !) 
 
 Through the very clear shallow water we could see many ugly fat 
 slugs, about six inches in length, and were told that these are the far- 
 famed bake de iner or trepang (Jwlothuria7is\ so greatly prized by the 
 Chinese that a colony of Chinamen have settled in the north of the 
 Isle, near Jaffna, on purpose to superintend the fishing for these slugs 
 and curing them. They are found all along the north-west coast, in 
 water from one foot to eight fathoms in depth, and are systematically 
 captured by native divers. They are partially cooked in iron pans 
 over a slow fire, and are then dried in the sun, and finally smoked 
 over a fire of greenwood. 
 
 In the hands of a Chinese cook they make excellent and most 
 nutritious gelatinous soup ; but they require careful preparation and 
 very slow boiling, and they are not appreciated in Ceylon any more than 
 another delicately gelatinous dainty, dear to the goiir/net of China — 
 namely, edible birds' nests, which are found in considerable quantities 
 in the darkest recesses of large gloomy caves in the Central and 
 Southern Provinces of Ceylon, both on the sea-coast and far inland, 
 chiefly in the latter, in the Morowa Korle, whence they are collected 
 by Chinamen, who have purchased from Government the exclusive 
 right to this harvest. 
 
 The swift,' which builds these curious nests, is a small dark-grey 
 bird. The proportion of isinglass in its nest is considerably less than 
 that obtained in Java, Borneo, and elsewhere, so that although the 
 birds are numerous in Ceylon, the value of the nests as an article of 
 commerce is small, not exceeding 4,000 rupees a year. 
 
 Short as was our stay at Kalpitiya, many kind people — Tamil, 
 Singhalese, and Burgher— brought us miscellaneous git"ts,- the dear 
 little baby mongoose aforesaid, both land and water turtles, shells, 
 
 1 Collocalia francica.
 
 96 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 corals, fragrant limes strung together to form necklaces of honour, 
 and strangely fascinating blossoms of the cocoa-nut and the areca 
 palm, which I can only describe as somewhat resembling bunches of 
 the richest waxy wheat, vastly magnified and carved in ivory. These 
 are much used in Singhalese decoration, though involving a prodigal 
 sacrifice of the precious nuts. Less wasteful, but also less graceful, 
 were the plaited palm-leaves wherewith our boat-home was further 
 honourably adorned, while there seemed no end to the ingenious 
 oddities in the form of miniature lanterns, parrots, birds of paradise, 
 &:c., all fashioned by plaiting strips of palm-leaf. 
 
 Amongst the gifts which to me had all the charm of novelty was 
 a basket of Cashew-nuts,^ an excellent kidney-shaped nut, which 
 grows in the most eccentric fashion outside of a yellow pear-shaped 
 fruit, hanging on to one end of it. The fruit itself is of an acrid 
 astringent flavour ; but in some countries a strong spirit is distilled 
 from the fermented juice. Here, however, only the nuts are eaten. 
 When raw, although nice, they are very unwholesome, and the shell 
 contains an acrid caustic oil, which is almost poisonous, and stains 
 one's fingers, so they are always roasted ere they are brought to table, 
 and are excellent. 
 
 What with fruit, flowers, and living creatures, our limited space 
 was being rapidly filled up. 
 
 Next morning we started early on the return voyage to Puttalam, 
 but lost the morning breeze while halting at the Karative Salt-pans, 
 so the crew had a long day of hard work rowing in the sun. These 
 salt-works, with those at Puttalam, Chilaw, and other points, are the 
 special industry of this district ; the salt being obtained from the 
 great calm lagoon, whose waters, owing to ceaseless evaporation in 
 the burning sun, are very much more briny than those of the ocean 
 by which it is fed. The lagoon is nearly thirty miles in length, with 
 a breadth of from four to eight miles. 
 
 As salt is deposited more rapidly by still water than by that 
 which is subject to tidal movement, a large part of the lake is enclosed 
 by a mud embankment, where the waters are held captive for a 
 given period, after which they are led by small ditches into shallow 
 enclosures or pans, where evaporation goes on still more rapidly, and 
 the brine is left till it becomes further condensed. This saturated 
 solution is then again transferred to another series of shallow 
 enclosures, where it is left till the salt is precipitated in snowy 
 
 1 Anacardhim occidentalc.
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 97 
 
 crystals, forming a glittering crust of from two to three inches in 
 thickness. 
 
 Upwards of 300,000 cwt. is sometimes thus obtained in this 
 neighbourhood in the course of a season, though at other times not 
 one-third of this amount may be collected. The quantity eventually 
 stored depends greatly on the sun, for the harvest is as precarious as 
 that of kelp or of hay, or whatever else depends on fickle weather ; 
 and the most promising deposits vanish literally 'like snow-drifts in 
 thaw,' should unseasonable rains chance to fall. 
 
 This work (which in this district gives employment to upwards of 
 a thousand persons) is chiefly carried on by Moormen working under 
 Government supervision, for the salt trade, here as in Hindoostan, is 
 a Government monopoly, and one which forms a very important item 
 in the revenue, bringing in an annual average of upwards of 800,000 
 rupees (/. e. about ;j^8o,ooo). The cost of manufacture being only 
 about threepence per cwt., and the price paid to the salt contractors 
 only about four rupees per ton, while retail dealers pay about forty- 
 seven rupees for the same weight, it follows that Government profits 
 to the extent of about 900 per cent. 
 
 Curiously enough, it is proved that whereas the annual con- 
 sumption of salt in India is less than 6 lb. per head, that in Ceylon 
 is just double, averaging 12 lb. per head. Whether this implies a 
 peculiarly strong craving for salt in these islanders, I know not ; but 
 its importance is so fully recognised that, on various occasions, both 
 the Dutch and the Portuguese contrived to bring the kings of Kandy 
 (/>. of the mountain province in the heart of the Isle) to terms by 
 blockading every route by which salt could be carried from the sea- 
 coast to the mountains. 
 
 The price of the article of course varies enormously with the 
 distance to which it has to be carried. To fish-curers on the coast 
 it is now supplied almost gratis, with a view to the encouragement of 
 this as an island industry, instead of, as at present, importing large 
 quantities of salt fish from India. In the towns on the seaboard, to 
 which salt is conveyed by boat, the addition of freight is not very 
 serious; but in inland districts, which can only be supplied by toil- 
 some bullock-cart and coolie transport, the price is enormously in- 
 creased ; and in the hill districts, the difficulty and cost of transport 
 is so great, that the salt which at the salt-pans sells for two cents per 
 pound, may fetch from one to two rupees in the mountains. It is 
 hoped that ere long a branch railway may greatly facilitate this trafific,
 
 98 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Besides these salt-works on the west coast, there are others at 
 Hanibantotte in the Southern Province, and smaller ones on the north 
 and east sea-coast. 
 
 Sunday proved anything but a day of rest for the Bishop, who had 
 come to Puttalam in order to consecrate the new church, and who in 
 the course of the day held all possible services in English and 
 in Tamil, beginning with a baptism in the early morning and 
 ending with a confirmation in the evening. Amongst the candidates 
 were several very smart Tamil ladies, who wore short-sleeved 
 jackets of bright coloured silk, and muslin skirts which by no 
 means veiled their bare brown feet and ankles. According to 
 oriental custom their large muslin veils duly concealed their faces 
 till the moment of confirmation, when the veils were thrown 
 back. 
 
 We were very glad to end the evening by a stroll on the sea- 
 beach, watching a lovely sunset ; but we were assured that this 
 would not at all times be so pleasant, as in one monsoon shoals of 
 jelly-fish are washed ashore, and lie rotting in the sun, poisoning the 
 whole atmosphere. A pleasanter gift of the sea is the oyster crop, 
 which here is said to be excellent. We passed through the fish- 
 market, and saw a great variety of fishes — some odd, some beautiful ; 
 but all these we saw in larger numbers a few days later at Chilaw, a 
 very pretty village lying between the sea and a river, only separated 
 from one another by a very narrow belt of sand. The coast there is 
 infested by sharks, and monstrous saw-fish, fully fifteen feet in length, 
 were sometimes captured. 
 
 In that market we saw young sharks of three distinct species, 
 saw-fish, dog-fish, cuttle-fish, and many more ; some of the most 
 vivid scarlet with sky-blue spots, some scarlet shaded with crimson, 
 others mauve and silvery grey, like the doves of the sea. There was 
 every shade of colour, in every conceivable combination and variety 
 of marking, with odd scales and fins. In the fish world, as elsewhere, 
 the gaudiest are by no means the best. Those most in favour for 
 the table are the seir, soles, mullet, whiting, mackerel, dories, and 
 good little sardines. 
 
 But for gorgeous colouring we turn to the family of parrot-fishes, 
 of lustrous green, gold, purple, or crimson, varied by bands of the 
 richest scarlet, grey, and yellow, the whole being toned by cross 
 stripes of velvety black. Then there are great fire-fish, of vivid flame 
 colour, and Red Sea perch, of dazzling scarlet. One lovely fish,
 
 THE CRUISE OE THE CASTLE J ERMVN 99 
 
 about eighteen inches long,' is specially sacred to Buddha, being 
 clothed in his colours of lovely gold barred with rich brown sienna. 
 The red pahaya is also brilliant red tinted with gold. It grows to 
 about two feet in length, and is excellent to eat. The basket parrot 
 has a green back, fading into yellow, with yellow fins ; but the whole 
 is covered with straight lines and cross patches, giving the exact effect 
 of wicker-work. 
 
 A very handsome parrot-fish,^ about two feet in length, has a 
 dove-grey body with black spots, fins brown, with rows of dainty 
 little black spots ; the ventral fin is edged with delicate green, while 
 that on the back is edged with scarlet. The tail is scarlet with a 
 white edge ; the eye is bright gold, set in a golden head with blue- 
 green stripes. Altogether one almost fancies that a ray of prismatic 
 light must rest upon it. Then there is the worm parrot,^ so called 
 from a fancied resemblance to the worm which bores holes in palm- 
 trees. Its body is of a dark claret colour, crossed by five bars of 
 delicate yellow, while each separate scale is edged with green. 
 Bands of yellow, edged with pale blue, meander over the head. 
 
 When one hears of a ' squirrel parrot,' ^ one naturally expects to 
 see something grey or brown ; but this is by no means the case. It 
 is a gorgeous fish, about eighteen inches in length, of beautifully 
 shaded green, with longitudinal stripes and dots of crimson : its 
 head is likewise green and crimson, and its tail-fin striped scarlet 
 and gold on a green ground. The pumpkin parrot,"" which averages 
 three feet in length, has a blue-green back and bright green tail, grey 
 under side, and yellow head, with sienna fins ; l)ut it is covered all 
 over with a honeycomb pattern of bright yellow. 
 
 A very lady-like-looking member of this family is the Balistes, 
 robed in delicate silver ; its eyes are bright golden, with large black 
 pupil. The green tulip parrot" is also a dainty little fish, only about 
 six inches in length, apparelled in lovely shaded green ; while the 
 cocoa-nut sparrow {Pol-Kitchyah) is a small creature, with head, tail, 
 fins, and crossbars of yellow on a claret-coloured ground. 
 
 Perhaps the most marvellously variegated of all these creatures is 
 the flower parrot,'^ which chiefly frequents the coral-reefs off the south 
 of the Isle. Its lustrous robe has horizontal bands of silver, blue, 
 crimson, bright green, and dark green, crossed by black bands and 
 
 1 The Dewe (or holy) Boraloowah ^ Ratoo-Glrawah. 
 
 ' Panoo-Girawah. ^ Lma-Girawah, * Laboo-Gira-wah. 
 
 ^ Mil-Talapat-Girawah. ^ Mal-Giravuah. 
 
 H 2
 
 TOO TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 patches of yellow. The fins are straw-coloured, the head has crimson 
 and bright green stripes radiating from the eye. 
 
 Even the excellent herring of Ceylon ' displays an oriental love of 
 colour, for its silvery body is striped with red, and some of its fins are 
 yellow, while the others are dark steel-grey. But the triumph of fish 
 millinery is reserved for a lovely, very rare perch, dressed in silvery 
 grey, with tail, fins, and crown of the head of vivid gold, just tipped 
 with velvety black. 
 
 Another radiant butterfly of the deep is the Malkotah, which is 
 apparelled in green satin striped with scarlet, its fins and tail being 
 also scarlet. 
 
 But for oddity nothing can excel the various members of the 
 Chetodon family or 'Moon-fish,' as they are called by the Singhalese, 
 because of their globular form. One is just a ball of bright golden 
 yellow, with glittering yellow eyes and enormous brown fins. Another 
 has a yellow body with curved lines of purple ; black-and-gold tail 
 and fins, and a black band on the face. One little gem about four 
 inches in diameter is silvery grey, shaded with bands of darker grey, 
 and silvery eyes. Another equally tiny is of bright gold, with a blue 
 back and gold dorsal fin. 
 
 There are also crabs innumerable, including some which are 
 brilliantly tinted. They are of all shapes and sizes, from the largest 
 edible crabs down to little tiny hermits, which scamper about the 
 shore in thousands, hiding during the heat of the day under the cool 
 shade of the marine convolvulus, each tenanting some empty shell 
 which it has selected from the multitude which strew the beach. 
 But I must not linger too long over the wonders of the fish-market 
 and of the sea-shore, which so specially attracted us at Chilaw, from 
 being so close to and parallel with the banks of the river where our 
 boat lay anchored. 
 
 Here we were taken to see some fine wood-carving in the Roman 
 Catholic Church, where we were told the Sunday congregation 
 averaged 900 persons ; for here, as elsewhere in Ceylon, a large pro- 
 portion of the fishers and many of the coast population are Roman 
 Catholics — descendants of the Portuguese converts. Chapels are 
 numerous, all built by the people themselves, and devout con- 
 gregations attend Mass daily at 4 a.m. The fishers give their priest 
 a tithe of their daily catch, and in stormy weather will never put to 
 sea till he has sprinkled the boats with holy water. Not one boat 
 
 1 Pookoorowah,
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN iol 
 
 puts to sea on Sunday — a deference for tlie day in honourable 
 contrast with the enormous amount of Sunday labour exacted at the 
 ports where foreign vessels call, and where the toil of shipping and 
 unshipping cargo goes on without intermission. 
 
 Having been converted by the Portuguese, the Roman Catholics 
 in Ceylon have ever continued subject to the jurisdiction of the 
 Archbishop of Goa, whence also their priests have been chiefly 
 supplied. The French and Italian priests and vicars-apostolic sent 
 from Rome have found less favour with the people, who have shown 
 themselves nowise disposed to accept the dogma of Papal infallibility, 
 more especially since the Pope decreed that in September 1884 the 
 jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Goa should cease, and the Goanese 
 clergy should no longer be competent to dispense the holy sacraments, 
 unless they would subject themselves to the Pope's representative — 
 a change of allegiance to which they very seriously objected. 
 
 The strife born of those disputes has been most unedifying. 
 Thus we were shown an island near Negombo (Dhuwa Isle) to which 
 some notion of special sanctity attaches, and there the different orders 
 have had serious conflicts as to which should say Mass first. The 
 year before our visit, thousands had assembled, quite prepared for a 
 free fight in support of their respective spiritual leaders ; but the 
 British authorities having got wind of their intentions, a body of 
 police took possession of the chapel, and ordered which should take 
 precedence. Afterwards the others held their service, although greatly 
 incensed at the preference shown to their rivals. 
 
 I heard much of the miracle-plays performed on Good Friday in 
 a building adjoining the chapel. The room was chemically darkened, 
 leaving only sufficient light to distinguish three great crucifixes. All 
 other figures were real. The Blessed Virgin was personated by a 
 Singhalese woman. Afterwards an image representing the dead Christ 
 was carried on a bier through the streets of the city, which were lined 
 with thousands of kneeling women, all dressed in black, and wailing 
 aloud. At Chilaw, on Palm Sunday, processions of large images of 
 our Lord riding the ass, and of the twelve Apostles, are paraded on 
 wheels, just as the Hindoos parade their gods. At Jaffna the pro- 
 cessions might well be mistaken for that of Jaggernaut's cars, and no 
 heathen idol could be more repulsive than are the images of many of 
 the Christian saints as here displayed. 
 
 About half-way between Puttalam and Kalpitiya lies a village 
 named Talavillu, which has attained to great notoriety through certain
 
 I02 TJVO HAPPY YEARS tN CEVLoN 
 
 miraculous cures imputed to St. Anna, to whom a sick man vowed 
 to give all his goods in case he should recover from dire illness. He 
 did recover, and his little property proved a nest-egg for the accumu- 
 lation of a great sum of similar offerings. So a large church speedily 
 replaced the original humble shrine, and now crowds of pilgrims of 
 all faiths, to the number of 20,000, assemble there for a great annual 
 fair in the month of July. Not only Roman Catholics, but Hindoos 
 and Buddhists, pay their vows at the shrine of St. Anna, who receives 
 gifts of all sorts. We were told that a waiter in one of the hotels had 
 just presented her with a magnificent green satin dress and golden 
 crown. The pilgrims travel from afar in crowded boats and heavily 
 laden carts, and are a cause of consideraljle anxiety to the authorities, 
 from the fear of their causing or spreading disease.' 
 
 Ceylon has no lack of modern miracles, so called, nor of faithful 
 believers therein. Thus, had we been curious in such matters, we 
 might have visited a church five miles from Negombo, in which lay 
 a girl whose life was said to be one long trance, but who on every 
 Friday imagined that she endured all the agonies of the crucifixion, 
 and who certainly did seem to be enduring indescribable pain, though 
 heretics failed to believe that, as was alleged, drops of blood truly 
 trickled from her hands and feet. At first the good old village priest 
 declared himself unable to express any opinion on this strange case ; 
 but, after a visit from his bishop, it was declared to be a true miracle, 
 whereupon thousands flocked to see her, and enriched the chapel by 
 their offerings. 
 
 Leaving pleasant Chilaw, we rowed back, in glorious moonlight 
 (oh, so beautiful as seen from beneath the dark over-arching fronds 
 of tall cocoa-palms !) to the lovely Luna-Oya, and there anchored, 
 that we might get full enjoyment of the early morning light on its 
 beautiful foliage and tangled creepers, and on the wealth of reeds, 
 
 1 Letters from Puttalam, on July 19, 1889, tell of the town being invaded by the 
 usual groups of pilgrims, mendicants, devotees, soothsayers, musicians, &c. — men 
 and women of all classes, and of all the different races which people the Isle, crowd- 
 ing to worship at the shrine of St. Anna, irrespective of their various creeds, greatly 
 to the advantage of the owners of ferry-boats plying between Puttalam and Ettalai. 
 
 But by July 26 cholera had broken out, and three deaths having occurred, the 
 festival was stopped by order of the Government officers, pilgrims being forbidden to 
 enter Puttalam, and recommended to return to their homes. A hospital was estab- 
 lished at St. Anna's, and shelters for wayfarers stricken v\ith illness were organised 
 along the loutc, in charge of properly qualified attendants. A medical officer was 
 also stationed at Kalpitiya, whose duty it was to see the various bands of pilgrims 
 safely started on their homeward way.
 
 rilE CRUISE OE THE CASTLE JERMYN 103 
 
 acaiithus, and innumerable water-plants on its sedgy shores. The 
 men camped on shore, rigging up the brown sail as their tent, and 
 kindling a bright fire beneath the trees. 
 
 Again, with the dawn, we rejoiced in all the voices of the wakening 
 jungle life — monkeys and jolly old wanderoos, parrots, kingfishers, 
 barbets, jungle-fowl, — notes of all sorts, harsh and liquid, the most 
 attractive being those of a cheery black and white bird, which 
 Europeans call a robin, because it has something of the friendly 
 demeanour to human beings which endears our own little redbreast. 
 All day long we sailed or rowed, and at sunset neared the village 
 of Maravilla ; but catching sight of a crowd of natives preparing 
 decorations in honour of the Bishop's visit, we pretended not to 
 have arrived, and, turning back, anchored for the night near a 
 grand old banyan tree, amid whose dark foliage flashed fire-flies 
 innumerable. 
 
 Immediately after early coffee, M. de Soyza, the fine old village 
 fHOodliar, came to fetch us, and showed us over his splendidly kept 
 cocoa-palm estate, watered by the aid of a steam-engine, an outlay 
 well repaid by the luxuriant growth of the trees, young ones about 
 eleven years of age having fronds of from twenty to twenty-five feet 
 in length. On an average, each full grown tree yields twenty nuts 
 six times a year. 
 
 These fine fronds, torn into shreds and plaited, figured largely in 
 the decorations at the landing-place, and at church, mingling with 
 the large fan-shaped leaves and rich glossy-brown fruit of the palmyra- 
 palm, the scarlet screw-pine, and curiously woven pendent birds' nests, 
 the general effect being very light and pretty. 
 
 The congregation here being all Singhalese, the Bishop of course 
 conducted the service in that language (to me as incomprehensible 
 as Tamil). The interest centred in the baptism of two adults, con- 
 verts from Buddhism. 
 
 In the afternoon we resumed our voyage, sailing down stream 
 between beautifully wooded banks, where we saw several great 
 ungainly kabragoyas, and numerous small lovely lizards. We 
 attempted to capture a bright green tree-snake, about four feet long, 
 which was twined round a branch, with a crested bird dead in its 
 mouth ; but at our approach it dropped into the water and swam to 
 shore. Though not venomous, it is dreaded by the islanders, because 
 of its habit of darting at the eyes of man or bird. 
 
 A sunset, in which every gorgeous colour blended, was succeeded
 
 io4 nvo llArPy YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 by an after-glow still more exquisite ; and ere its brillianey had laded 
 the moon shone gloriously, its light blending with that of the sheet- 
 lightning, while the glaring torches of men fishing cast long fiery 
 reflections, and showers of sparks, as the fishers passed in and out 
 beneath the overhanging branches of the dark trees. 
 
 We anchored for the night where the placid waters of the Ging- 
 Oya mingle with those of the Maha-Oya, and together flow silently 
 into the ocean, the point of union being marked only by the upheaval 
 every other minute of the majestic green wave which curls and breaks 
 in dazzling surf and with thunderous roar -a vision of lovely peace, 
 blended with resistless force. 
 
 Sailing in the early dawn, we passed from the calm river to a still 
 calmer canal, and thence into the Lake Negombo, where we again 
 anchored beside the picturesque native town and fishing viUage, with 
 all its variety of boats, most fascinating to a sketcher. A hearty wel- 
 come awaited us in a pleasant bungalow between the sea and the lake, 
 and close to an old fort — commenced by the Portuguese, and com- 
 pleted by the Dutch — close also to a magnificent banyan tree with 
 innumerable stems, one of the finest I have ever seen. Beneath its 
 shadow sat groups of Singhalese men and women, waiting their 
 summons on business to the court-house, within the old fort. 
 
 Truth to tell, banyan trees, beautiful as they always must be, do 
 not very commonly attain to the gigantic size of our Indian visions. 
 We have all been from our cradles imbued with descriptions of the 
 sacred fig, which spreads her arms, 
 
 ' Branching so broad and long, that in the ground 
 The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow 
 About the mother-tree, a pillared shade 
 High over-arched, and echoing walks between ' — 
 
 that mystic grove where Milton tells how the parents of our race found 
 refuge ; and so many travellers have brought home measurements of 
 the amazing extent of ground covered by the multitudinous offspring 
 of one parent stem, that stay-at-home folk suppose such trees are to 
 be met with at every turn. 
 
 I am sorry to say that this is so far from being the case, that in 
 the course of very extensive travels I can only recollect one tree in 
 Nananu, a small island off Viti Levu {i.e. Great Fiji '), and two or 
 three in India, to compare with this one at Negombo. Sad to say, 
 
 1 'At Home in Fiji.' By C. F. Gordon Camming. Published by William Black- 
 wood & Sons.
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN loS 
 
 in the districts of Ceylon where the forest has been ruthlessly cleared 
 to make way for coffee, I was shown the sites whence trees, which, 
 must have been well nigh as grand as this, had been felled and burnt, 
 and in place of their stately beauty and delicious shade, I saw only 
 dull little bushes beneath a scorching sun. 
 
 Of existing trees, perhaps the most accessible specimen for the 
 easy-going tourist is that at Dumdum, near Calcutta ; but for majestic 
 grandeur probably none can compare with the famous banyan on an 
 island in the Nerbudda river about ten miles from Baroda, which 
 numbers three hundred and fifty great stems and three thousand 
 lesser ones. Apparently a good many more have been washed away 
 by floods, but even now this vast colony covers an area two thousand 
 feet in circumference, while the overhanging branches extend over a 
 far wider space, and are continually putting forth fresh perpendicular 
 shoots and masses of brown fibre, ready still further to enlarge their 
 border. Of course the Hindoos (who reverence all large trees as the 
 dwelling-place of a god, and to whom every leaf of the sacred fig is 
 precious) assemble here in vast concourse, and at certain great 
 festivals as many as seven thousand human beings sometimes find 
 shelter under its broad shadow, besides troops of monkeys and flocks 
 of great bats, parrots, pigeons, and pea-fowl, which find a safe home 
 in its sacred branches. 
 
 Such trees as these are, however, quite exceptional. Even in 
 India an average family group rarely exceeds twenty or thirty main 
 trunks, and more slender pillars at intervals ; with a beard-like net- 
 work of pendent offshoots stretching earthward to meet the great 
 masses of bare roots, all twisted and interlaced, which seem like some 
 mighty race of serpents writhing in endless contortions. 
 
 It is necessary to remember that there are three distinct families 
 of the great clan fig-tree. These huge banyans are the Ficus indica 
 (and it was beneath the shadow of one of these that the Hindoo god 
 Vishnu was born). The still more sacred Peepid (as it is called in 
 India), or Bo (which is the contraction for Bodi/iwahaiise, as the tree 
 is called in Ceylon), is the Ficus religiosa, and it was beneath its 
 cool shade that Gautama sat absorbed in meditation till he attained 
 his Buddha- hood, or state of perfect wasdom ; consequently, wherever 
 Buddhism has reigned, even where, as throughout India, it has been 
 superseded by Brahmanism, this tree is held in deepest reverence.' 
 
 1 For singularly practical proof of this, in business matters, see ' In the Himalayas 
 and on Indian Plains,' p. 80. By C. F. Gordon Gumming. Published by Chatto & 
 Windus.
 
 lo6 71V0 ITAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 The third great menil)er of clan fig is the Ficus elastica, or 
 indiariibber tree, of which it would be difificult to find nobler 
 representatives than the magnificent avenue outside the Botanical 
 Gardens at Peradeniya, near Kandy. Its large leathery leaf is familiar 
 to most folk as a hothouse shrub, and it bears a small bright crimson 
 seed. The sacred Bo tree bears a small scarlet fruit like a tiny fig, 
 and its curiously thin heart-shaped leaf ends in a long point, which 
 serves as a conduit for trickling rain-drops, which, after a shower, 
 hang glittering in the sunlight. Like those of the aspen, the leaves of 
 this ' tree of wisdom ' are for ever quivering with every breath of air. 
 Long before sunrise we found our way to the palm-fringed shore, 
 to enjoy the rare luxury of a delicious bath in the warm sea — rare, 
 because there are so few places on these shores where we could feel 
 safe from sharks ; but here the water lies so clear above the firm 
 yellow sand, that sharks seem afraid to approach, so our enjoyment 
 of the perfect morning was unalloyed. 
 
 But the subsequent delight of lying idly at rest in the verandah 
 during the noonday heat was tempered by alarming stories of the 
 terrible results of such indulgence should the breeze happen to be 
 blowing from the north-west, in which case it is known as the ' Along- 
 shore ' or ' Land ' wind, which, blowing over feverish Indian jungles, 
 arrives here hot and dry, and shrivels up whatever it touches. Half an 
 hour of this delicious but treacherous breeze blowing on a sleeper, or 
 even on a person lying at rest, often proves worse than a sunstroke, 
 and is quite as permanent in its effects. Animals suffer from it as 
 severely as human beings, horses and deer being often crippled with 
 rheumatism, or even blind from this cause. Its effect on vegetation 
 is also most hurtful, and even furniture shrinks and splits under 
 its baneful influence. 
 
 On Sunday the Bishop held morning and evening service in the 
 old Dutch fort, the congregation consisting chiefly of the Burgher 
 descendants of those early colonists, with a sprinkling of more 
 picturesque Singhalese with their combs and coniboys. The services 
 were hearty, the singing good, and the great fronds of the tall palms 
 quivered in the cool light breeze as we looked dow-n on the bright 
 blue sea — a peaceful, pleasant scene. 
 
 The old fort suggests strange visions of trading under difificulties, 
 inasmuch as the main purpose of its existence, and of its strong 
 garrison, was for the protection of the cinnamon trade, and to supply 
 military escorts for each of the large bodies of the native cinnamon
 
 THE CRiJiSE OE THE CASTLE JERMYN io7 
 
 peelers, who were sent into the jungles all around Negombo to collect 
 the spice so dear to our grandmothers, and so largely used in the 
 manufacture of chocolate and church incense. Little did those gentle 
 dames and peaceful worshippers dream of the risks run by the very 
 poor, almost naked, Singhalese cinnamon collectors —of attack not 
 only by divers wild beasts, but also by warlike Kandyan troops, and 
 of the toil and danger incurred in their service. 
 
 About the year 1770, a large extent of the jungle near Negombo 
 was taken into cultivation for the growth of cinnamon only, when, as I 
 have already mentioned, such stringent laws were enacted to secure 
 the Government monopoly of the precious spice, that flogging was the 
 penalty for any injury to a shrub, while death awaited the wretch who 
 destroyed a tree in the Government plantations, or even helped him- 
 self to a little bark. 
 
 One of the objects of interest near Negombo is a cocoanut-palm 
 with several heads, a growth so rare that we were taken up the lake to 
 see it ; but found it as hideous as are most other deformities. The 
 stem rises singly to the usual height ; but where the crown of fruit and 
 fronds ought to be, it divides into nine white stems, each bearing a 
 misshappen bunch of leaves only. I heard of another deformed palm 
 near Belligama in the neighbourhood of Galle. That one has a triple 
 crown. I have also seen a hydra-headed palm on one of the Fijian Isles, 
 where it was equally prized by the natives on account of its singularity. 
 
 I found a more attractive object for pencil and brush in the 
 majestic banyan tree, which claimed all my available time at charm- 
 ing Negombo, to which we bade adieu with infinite regret, my 
 companions returning to Colombo by land, while I preferred return- 
 ing by water, and sailing down the lake in clear moonlight. It was 
 an evening much to be remembered, on account of the wonderful 
 phosphorescence of the water, the brilliancy of forked and sheet 
 lightning, and the utter stillness, broken only by the deep growling 
 of distant thunder. There was also something of novelty in finding 
 myself alone with a crew of Singhalese, of whose language I scarcely 
 knew six words ! 
 
 We anchored at Tarracoolie, a very pretty spot with rich foliage 
 and deep reflections, of which I secured an early sketch, then once 
 more sailed by lovely river and canal ; and ere the sun set, the Castle 
 Jermyn was safe back at her old mooring, and all her passengers 
 (bipeds and quadrupeds) were in comfortable quarters at St. Thomas's 
 College, under the Bishop's hospitable roof.
 
 io8 TWO ItAPPy YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 TO THE HILLS 
 
 To the hills — Rice-fields — The railway — Kitool and talipot palms — Olas — Bread-fruit 
 — Jak — Papaw — Kapok — Road-making — Major Skinner — Gampola — The Delta — 
 Rambodda Pass — Pallagolla. 
 
 Soon after our return we spent an interesting forenoon at Cotta, about 
 six miles from Colombo, a very pretty place, where the river broadens 
 so as to form a clear calm lake, embosomed in groves of cocoa-palms. 
 Cotta has the double interest of having been the residence of the 
 Singhalese kings at the time when the Portuguese iirst came to bring 
 misery, discord, and war, and the modern and most peaceful interest 
 of having been a very important station of the Church Missionary 
 Society, almost ever since it first commenced work in Ceylon in 1818. 
 A printing-press was then established here, which has been to the 
 Singhalese all that the American press at Jaffna has been to the 
 Tamils. (See concluding chapter.) 
 
 A very important branch of the work here is the Training Institu- 
 tion for Native Students of Divinity and Schoolmasters. The fact 
 that (although selected from the most promising pupils in all parts of 
 the Isle) these at present only number respectively five and four, 
 speaks volumes for the difficulty of filling these important posts. 
 
 Another very important feature is the boarding-school, open to 
 any Singhalese girl of good character, irrespective of caste or religion. 
 It has been open about sixteen years, during which time about 
 250 girls have been trained, some remaining for ten years. A 
 considerable number become Christians and teachers in the schools. 
 The same may be said of the English school for boys, which has an 
 average attendance of ninety, of whom nearly half are Buddhists, all of 
 whom, however, voluntarily attend the Scripture classes. 
 
 Troops of pretty, happy-looking children, boys and girls, from 
 the various schools had assembled to greet the Bishop ; and in the 
 crowded church were no less than fifty-three candidates for confirma- 
 tion, all Singhalese and Burghers. 
 
 Early on the following morning we started for the hills, travelling 
 by the beautiful railway, which is certainly one of the loveliest lines 
 of rail I know of. Part of it reminded me of that through the 
 Bombay Ghauts. But, ere reaching the mountain district, we 
 traversed a wide expanse of swampy paddy-fields, most refreshing to
 
 TO THE HILLS 109 
 
 the eyes, the intensely vivid green of the young rice-crops far exceed- 
 ing that of our own wheat-fields. 
 
 It is a cultivation involving much toil, and singularly unpleasant 
 to those engaged in it, as from first to last it is all in mud. To begin 
 with that on level ground, each tiny field must be scooped out so as 
 to form a small lakelet several feet deep, the mud thus obtained form- 
 ing an embankment which retains the water, so that the rice may 
 never be dry till it is fully ripe. These embankments form the foot- 
 paths by which the people travel from field to field. 
 
 On hillsides the toil is of a different sort. There it consists in 
 building up terraces, tier above tier, for many hundred feet, so as to 
 produce a succession of tiny lakes, curving with the formation of the 
 ground, each supported in front by a solid embankment, which in 
 some cases is five or six feet in depth. These are constructed with 
 least trouble in glens and valleys where the ground forms an angle, 
 and where a stream flows naturally ; but I have seen steep hillsides 
 so terraced as to present a most singular effect of small lakes, fed by 
 rivulets carefully led to the summit from some distant source. 
 
 By this contrivance all available water is distributed and stored 
 during the dry season, and when the rains come, the superfluous 
 water flows from one tier of tank-like terraces to the next without 
 washing away the soil. Thus, thanks to the patient industry of the 
 husbandmen, almost precipitous hillsides are green with waving rice- 
 crops. At all times the contrivances for irrigation are suggestive of 
 infinite pains, small water-courses being led by aqueducts of mud 
 and stone or bamboo to carry tiny rivers of life through miles of 
 jungle, from the cool hills to the parched plains below. The 
 cultivation of the steep hillsides is exactly the same as in the 
 Himalayas, and the narrow fields are ploughed with the same ante- 
 diluvian hand-implements. 
 
 The cultivation of the plains is less toilsome. When the ground 
 has been thoroughly saturated, the water is turned off, and the soil 
 is stirred to a depth of about eighteen inches by a very primitive 
 plough drawn by two buffaloes. Then the water is turned on again, 
 and on the flat ground herds of buffaloes are allowed to wade at will and 
 wallow in the mud, till it becomes so fluid as to sink to a perfect level. 
 The buffaloes thus incrusted with mud are truly disgusting-looking 
 objects, and present a most curious contrast to the long-legged, pure 
 w^hite paddy-birds which stalk after them as inseparable companions. 
 
 The rice (which has been previously well soaked) is now scattered
 
 no riVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 on the level surface — most literally casting bread upon the waters, to 
 be found after many days. In about a fortnight the black mud is 
 carpeted to a depth of four inches with the loveliest green. 'J'he 
 water is run off and on alternately till just before the grain is ripe, 
 when the ground is allowed to dry, preparatory to harvest. 
 
 Where water does not fail, these fields yield two crops annually 
 — the maha, or great crop, sown in spring and reaped in early 
 autumn ; the second, called ya/la, sown about July and reaped in 
 December. Hence, about the month of September, there may be 
 harvesting of ripe grain and treading-out of corn by unmuzzled oxen 
 or buffaloes in some fields, while others are being ploughed by 
 buffaloes or just appearing in sheets of fresh young green. The exact 
 dates are regulated by the somewhat uncertain coming of the mon- 
 soons (in Biblical language, ' the former and latter rains '), due in the 
 southern provinces in May and November. 
 
 Simple and idyllic as this primitive farming seems to the casual 
 observer, these verdant fields are sometimes the occasion of wearisome 
 lawsuits ; for, as according to Singhalese custom all property is 
 equally divided among a man's heirs, and then again subdivided, it 
 follows that a score of owners may share in the cultivation of a small 
 paddy-field, and in the division of its crop. 
 
 Other fields are the common property of a whole village, and the 
 produce has to be divided in certain proportions among the villagers, 
 from the owner of the buffaloes employed to plough and trample the 
 land, down to the dhoby who does the village washing. I may add 
 that the word ' paddy ' means unhusked rice, of which two bushels 
 yield one of cleaned rice. 
 
 Leaving the level plain, we gradually ascended — upward, still 
 upward, all the way, wending round sharp curves and by many 
 zigzags, so that we could sometimes see both the last carriage of the 
 train and the engines ! The carriages are provided with broad white 
 roofs and Venetian shutters as some protection against the sun. The 
 engines are all of the most powerful construction, as well they may 
 be, seeing that for upwards of twelve miles, while rounding the flank 
 of AUagalla, a grand craggy mountain, the uniform gradient is i in 45. 
 By the time we reached the summit of Kadugannawa Pass, about 
 sixty miles from Colombo, we had ascended 1,700 feet. In front of 
 each engine is a 'cow-catcher,' intended to sweep off any inquisitive 
 animals which may rashly wander on to the line. Unfortunately even 
 this is not always effectual, and the carelessness of owners of cattle
 
 TO THE HILLS in 
 
 in allowing their animals to stray upon the railway is incredible. 
 The railway report for 1890 shows that 129 bullocks and cows were 
 run over by trains during the year, besides occasional buffaloes. 
 Last May a herd of these were run into near Polgahawela station, 
 and though some were swept aside, one was run over, causing the 
 wheels to run off the rails. Fortunately the train was stopped ere 
 grave damage was done. 
 
 It is a single broad-gauge line, and in truth, when we see what 
 frightful engineering difficulties had to be overcome in its construction, 
 the succession of tunnels (one of which, through Moragalla, is 365 
 feet in length), and the skirting of precipitous crags, we can under- 
 stand something of the causes which limited its width. 
 
 Worse even than the stubborn rocks of the mountains in the 
 central province was the awful malaria, which in those days was so 
 prevalent in some of the low-lying inland districts, that it was almost 
 certain death to sleep in them. The coolies who worked on the line 
 died by hundreds ; and in the tract lying between Mirigama and 
 the Dekanda valley, so many perished that at last there literally 
 was not found room for their burial within easy distance of the line. 
 As the only possibility of keeping them alive, it was found necessary 
 to take them all back to Colombo every night, a distance of about 
 fifty miles. Of the Europeans in charge of the works, one after 
 another succumbed, and had to be shipped off from Ceylon with 
 health shattered by the deadly fever. • 
 
 Now, doubtless owing to improved drainings, and to the whole- 
 sale cleaning of the jungle to make room for divers forms of 
 cultivation, the pestilential malaria is a story of the past ; and of 
 the dense impenetrable forest which fifty years ago clothed the steep 
 Kadugannawa Pass only a few trees remain, and there is nothing 
 whatever to suggest to the luxurious traveller what pains and perils 
 were endured, and how many lives were sacrificed, ere this splendid 
 line was opened even thus far. Indeed, on one's first journey, there 
 
 1 Possibly some of the many victfms of jungle fever in other lands may be disposed 
 to try the simple remedy described in a letter to the editor of the Ceylon Observer. 
 The writer states that his stalwart brother had, from repeated attacks of Indian jungle 
 fever, dwindled to a mere skeleton, when a fakir came to his tent and offered to 
 permanently cure him. 
 
 His materia mcdica were of the simplest, consisting only of a flat piece of iron and 
 a bottle of sugar-cane vinegar. The former was made red-hot, and the vinegar was 
 poured over it, the patient inhaling the fumes. This operation was repeated only a 
 second time, and from that day forward, in the thirteen years up to date of the letter, 
 the sufferer never had a return of fever, and quite recovered his health.
 
 112 riVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 is no time for any impressions save those of wonder and admiration 
 at the rapidly changing panorama of most beautiful scenery. 
 
 Even when gliding along the face of sheer crags, looking down 
 on the valley a thousand feet below, one scarcely realises the situation. 
 For myself, frequently passing and repassing up and down this line, 
 and living for happy weeks in its neighbourhood, always pencil in 
 hand, I learnt to realise something of what must have been the 
 dangers involved in constructing such portions as ' The Bear's 
 Mouth,' ' Sensation Rock,' and the half-tunnel gallery along the face 
 of the Meeangalla precipice. 
 
 And yet all these are said to be plain sailing as compared with 
 the difficulties which are now being successfully overcome by the 
 engineers of the extension to Haputale, which is opening up much of 
 the grandest scenery in the isle ; so that almost ere these pages are 
 published, the most easy-going tourist will be able, without the smallest 
 exertion, to see whole districts which hitherto have been inaccessible 
 even to old residents. And not in this direction only, but north, 
 south, east, and west, the necessity of railway extension is being 
 recognised ; and in a very few years, so far as any difficulty is con- 
 cerned, travelling to any corner of Ceylon will be as matter-of-fact as 
 a journey from London to Edinburgh. 
 
 The railway system in Ceylon is entirely in the hands of Govern- 
 ment, and it is urged by those who plead for extension, that opening 
 up the country will certainly lead to great increase of traffic and 
 consequent revenue. With the exception of that between Kandy 
 and Matala, the lines hitherto constructed are said to be about the 
 best paying in the world. As to the stations, so much care is be- 
 stowed on their gardens that each is a thing of beauty, embowered in 
 luxuriant climbing plants, and all manner of fragrant and brilliant 
 flowers. All names are written up in English, Tamil, and Singhalese, 
 in their respective characters, so that all travellers may read, every 
 man in his own tongue, unperplexed by the hateful advertisements 
 which disfigure our British stations. 
 
 At each, pretty Singhalese children offer for sale baskets of 
 tempting fruit, and cool refreshing young cocoa-nuts which they cut 
 open, and hand all ready to the thirsty traveller. Fortunately for 
 sight-seers, the rate of travel is not excessive, twenty-eight miles an 
 hour being the utmost speed on the very best bit of level, while on 
 the steep incline twelve miles an hour is the regulation limit, and at 
 one point rather Jess,
 
 TO THE HILLS 113 
 
 There is so much to see on either side, that eyes and mind must 
 be constantly on duty, whether looking right up to the mountains 
 overhead, or down to the grand valley outspread far, far below, all 
 clothed with richest vegetation, every variety of palm mingling with 
 endless varieties of hardwood, while the little terraced rice-fields on 
 the slopes of the hills, and those on the flat expanse below, either 
 present sheets of the most dazzling green or seem like a mosaic of 
 innumerable tiny lakes. And on every side of this great valley rise 
 hills of every variety of form — a billowy sea of mountain-ranges, all 
 glorified by ever-changing effects of light and shadow, veiling mist 
 or sweeping storm, followed by that ' clear shining after rain,' which 
 daily reveals new beauties in mountain regions. 
 
 To me that scene recalls endless pleasant memories of happy days 
 and weeks spent in exploring many a lovely corner in that vast 
 panorama — memories of the cordial hospitality which gave me wel- 
 come to nest-like homes on many a hill and valley, and of one in 
 particular, to which I was welcomed again and again, perched at the 
 base of the mighty crag which crowns Allagalla Peak — which is a 
 beautiful isolated mountain, 3,394 feet in height — from the summit of 
 which, it is said, the Kandyan monarchs were wont to precipitate 
 persons accused of high treason. 
 
 That home was in a sheltered nook embosomed in fruit-trees, and 
 overlooking such a magnificent view as we may sometimes obtain for 
 a few moments by climbing some mighty Alp, but which few homes 
 can claim as their perpetual outlook. 
 
 Thence far below us, and yet far above the valley, we could 
 discern two narrow lines, and we knew that the lower one was the 
 cart-road and the upper one the railroad, and suddenly a double puff of 
 steam would rise, and there, darting from a tunnel, was a long train 
 with an engine at either end, labouring on its tortuous up-hill course, 
 winding round the steep hillside. It was so far below us that 
 it seemed like a fairy's toy, and yet it gave us a sense of touch 
 with our fellow-creatures which in so isolated an eyrie was rather 
 pleasant. 
 
 As we gradually ascended from the sea-level we observed a very 
 marked change in the character of the vegetation, one of the most 
 conspicuous trees being covered with bunches of white blossom, 
 which in the distance resemble our own white lilac ; the young leaves 
 being pure white, and all silvery on the under side, so that, when 
 swaying in the breeze, the tree contrasts prettily with its neighbours. 
 
 I
 
 114 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CF.YLON 
 
 I believe it is a croton, though utterly unlike the very gorgeously 
 coloured members of that family. This is called by the Singhalese 
 kekuna, and from its nuts they used to extract an oil for lamps, In 
 Fiji, where we found the identical tree and much of the identical 
 vegetation, these are known as candle-nuts, and I have seen them 
 strung on the rib of a palm-leaf to act as candles, and very dull was 
 the light they gave ! 
 
 A far more showy tree is the Moratuwa {Lagerstra;mta regina), 
 which flourishes near streams, growing to a height of from forty to 
 fifty feet, and bears splendid upright spikes, two or three feet in 
 length, of exquisite blossoms, varying from a delicate rose-colour to 
 rich purple. Think of the most beautiful horse-chestnut you ever 
 saw, and magnify and glorify its wealth of blossom, and you can 
 perhaps form some idea of this beautiful tree. It flowers on AUagalla 
 in the month of April. (I am told that these trees are in their glory 
 in the Bintenna district, near Mahaoya village, where the whole 
 western side of the Mahaoya river presents a blaze of rosy purple, 
 and stretching along the river-bed of yellow sand, relieved by a 
 background of dark green, a gorgeous scene in the bright morning 
 light.) 
 
 And trees here rarely stand naked and alone, as in England ; 
 they are generally enriched by graceful parasites, ferns, or perhaps 
 orchids, clothe stem and boughs, and a great variety of lianas 
 climb to the very summit of the tallest trees, and droop thence in 
 long trails or festoons of delicate greenery, connecting a whole group 
 of trees with their verdant veiling, often starred with white or blue 
 convolvulus. 
 
 Near the sea, and indeed so far inland as the saturated sea breeze 
 carries the salt spray, the vegetation is often so encrusted with salt, 
 that the young leaves seem partially blighted ; but only in gales of 
 unusual violence is the brine carried so far as this, and it would be 
 difficult to conceive foliage richer and more beautiful than that 
 through which we were now passing. It seemed as though Mother 
 Nature must have taxed all her inventive powers to devise an infinite 
 variety of graceful forms. I noticed this especially in the matter of 
 palms, which are at all times peculiarly fascinating, but on some 
 isles only one or two flourish, and from their multitude they 
 become monotonous. But here the eye can never weary, so amazing 
 is the diversity of form and colour presented to it in ever-changing 
 combination of strangely dissimilar palms, tree-ferns, and all manner
 
 TO THE HILLS 115 
 
 of hardwood, bearing large leaves or small, leathery or woolly, in 
 endless variety. 
 
 Though we had left the seaboard (the special region of the brine- 
 loving cocoa-palm), there were still enough of those graceful bending 
 stems and long waving fronds to contrast with the picturesque clumps 
 of stiff fan-leaved palmyra-palms (with rough dark stems upright as 
 pillars, crowned by capitals of glossy green), and with the slender 
 silvery areca, so slender that a stem seventy or eighty feet high does 
 not exceed five or six in diameter. 
 
 The latter flourishes at any altitude from the sea-level up to about 
 3,000 feet, and is sometimes planted to mark estate boundaries, and 
 sometimes as an avenue. 
 
 Totally different from these or from any other member of the 
 beautiful clan palm, and to me most attractive of all, was the kitool 
 or jaggery palm {Caryota urens). Its leaves are just like gigantic 
 fronds of the lovely maiden-hair fern of our hothouses. It is the 
 richest and most beautiful foliage that can be imagined, and its mode 
 of flowering is very remarkable. Till the last year of its life, by which 
 time it has attained a height of fifty or sixty feet, it bears leaves only, 
 then from the axil of the topmost leaf it throws out a large cluster of 
 flowers, and as this fades, another and another cluster flowers all the 
 way down the tree, alternately male and female, until the lowest leaf- 
 axil is reached, and the mass of fruitage is such that the exhausted 
 tree then dies. 
 
 The fruit is as unique as the leaf, for instead of bearing about a 
 hundred large nuts in clusters like other palms, it produces an in- 
 numerable multitude of juicy berries about the size of grapes, growing 
 in festoons several feet in length, like heavy drapery. 
 
 Under the impression that the natives eat these sweet berries, 
 I was one day tempted to taste them ; but the rash experiment was 
 immediately followed by a burning pain in my lips, which continued 
 unabated for some hours, notwithstanding the application of oil, 
 water, lime-juice, everything we could think of It was rather 
 alarming, although I knew it could not be poison, inasmuch as the 
 natives manufacture both sugar and palm-wine from the saccharine 
 sap, obtained by bruising the undeveloped blossom, and this coarse 
 brown jaggery-sugar is rather a pleasant sweetmeat. 
 
 A good tree sometimes yields a hundred pints of this sweet sap 
 or toddy in twenty-four hours. When the tree dies, good sago is 
 obtained from its pith •. and its hard black timber is valuable for 
 
 12
 
 Ii6 TIFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 house-building, and also, from its being tough and pliable, is generally 
 used for making the pingoes or yokes, six or eight feet in length, 
 which are balanced on the shoulder and used for carrying loads slung 
 from either end, the elastic spring of the pingo greatly lessening the 
 dead weight thus carried. The leaf-stalks yield a black fibre, from 
 which are prepared fine lines for fishing and ropes stout enough to 
 bind elephants. 
 
 But the Palm of Palms, of which I now for the first time saw a 
 considerable number, each in solitary grandeur, is the talipot,^ or 
 great fan-palm, the stately monarch of the palm kingdom, whose 
 grand green crown far overtops all its fellows. For the first thirty 
 years of its life it grows only magnificent fan-shaped leaves like those 
 of the palmyra, but much larger. 
 
 If there be any truth in the legend which affirms Ceylon to have 
 been the Paradise of our first parents, it must be confessed that Eve 
 showed a truly feminine love of sewing in her selection of foliage, as a 
 single leaf of the talipot palm would have been amply sufficient for 
 train and mantle — being on an average eighteen feet in length (some- 
 times very much larger), and all ready folded into plaits like those of 
 a lady's dress. 
 
 The natives turn these leaves to a thousand uses, domestic and 
 literary. When on a journey (and especially pilgrims bound for 
 sacred shrines in the wilds) each carries a portion of one of these 
 great leaves, tightly folded into a long narrow form, like a gigantic 
 closed fan. This serves as a sun-shade or rain-cloak by day, and at 
 night several friends contribute every man his palm-leaf — three or 
 four of these, with the pointed end upwards, forming a very fair bell- 
 shaped tent ; and very picturesque a few groups of these look when 
 pitched in some forest glade round their camp-fires. 
 
 In old days the exact grade of every great Singhalese or Kandyan 
 noble was shown by the number of such sun-shades which he was 
 entitled to have carried before him ; and on state occasions a richly 
 ornamented leaf, inlaid with pieces of glittering talc, and folded like 
 a huge fan, formed the ceremonial canopy which was held above his 
 head by one or more attendants. - 
 
 The leaves attain their largest size when the tree is about twenty 
 
 1 Corypha umbraculifera. 
 
 2 I embodied many curious details regarding the honorific use of the sun-shade in 
 all ages and all countries in a paper on ' Pagodas, Umbrellas, and Aurioles,' which 
 appeared in the English Illustrated Magazine for June and July 1888.
 
 TO THE HILLS 117 
 
 years of age, at which time they sometimes measure twenty-five feet 
 from the base of the leaf-stalk to the outer edge of the fan. As the 
 tree grows older, the leaves are smaller— the strength of the tree being 
 absorbed in preparation for its gigantic final effort of blossom and 
 fruition. 
 
 After the first ten years a visible trunk begins to form, and for 
 perhaps thirty years more it grows steadily, till the grand white stem 
 towers, straight as a mast, to a height of upwards of a hundred feet, 
 sustaining the magnificent crown of gigantic leaves. Like most of the 
 palm family, the stem bears ring-marks where the annual leaves have 
 gripped it. 
 
 The tree attains maturity at about forty years of age, when it 
 slowly develops one huge bud fully four feet high. In course of 
 time the expanding blossom bursts its prison, and develops into an 
 enormous spike of hermaphrodite flowers taking about three months 
 to perfect a majestic pyramid of snowy plumes composed of multi- 
 tudinous small cream-coloured flowers, something like those of the 
 yucca, and of an almost overpowering scent. These form one 
 splendid mass of blossom, rising from the heart of the leafy crown to 
 a height of from twenty to twenty-five feet, towering far above the 
 surrounding foliage. This stupendous cluster throws out lateral 
 branches, of which the lower tier sometimes measures twenty feet — 
 the base of the pyramid thus having a diameter of forty feet ! It is 
 a glorious object, and is visible from an immense distance, as this 
 palm so often grows among flat surroundings, such as rice-fields. 
 
 But the tree, which for well-nigh half a century has been accu- 
 mulating strength for this one supreme effort, never recovers the 
 exhaustion of such tremendous exertion. Its latest energies are 
 lavished on the ripening of its one crop of innumerable, but I 
 believe useless, nuts, each about the size of a small apple. Then, 
 having fulfilled its mission right nobly, and borne down by the weight 
 of its crop, the noble tree sickens, its leaves wither, the soft upper 
 end of the stem decays ; then the roots likewise decay, and within a 
 year of the date when the great blossom-spike first began to appear, 
 the dead tree falls prostrate — leaving its crown of precious leaves as 
 a last legacy to its owner. (Though indigenous to Ceylon and the 
 adjacent coast of Malabar, this palm is nowhere found wild ) 
 
 Strange to say, the talipot is of a gregarious habit as regards 
 flowering. Some years many are in blossom, and a noble sight they 
 present, I believe I was peculiarly fortunate in the number which I
 
 ii8 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 saw simultaneously between Kandy and Colombo. Then for perhaps 
 eight or ten years there are very few. If cut while the tree is still 
 young, it yields a white pith, of which the natives make cakes ; but 
 naturally so precious a tree is not sacrificed needlessly. 
 
 The leaves, when carefully prepared, are the equivalent of our 
 vellum. The most precious ancient manuscripts were all inscribed 
 with a sharp-pointed metal style on long narrow strips of talipot-leaf ; 
 a number of these being strung together form a volume. These are 
 carefully tied up between two long narrow covers, which may be only 
 painted wooden boards, but, in the case of old temple books, are 
 sometimes highly ornamented and even enriched with precious gems. 
 In some cases these covers are of embossed gold or silver. There 
 are very fine specimens in the Temple Library at Kandy. 
 
 •The preparation of the olas or ' vellum ' strips is done by the 
 junior priests and students in Buddhist monasteries. Tender young 
 leaves are selected, and the ribs having been removed, the leaf is cut 
 into strips, which are boiled in spring-water and then slowly dried in 
 the shade, and finally in the sun, after which they are again damped, 
 and each is individually polished by being drawn backwards and 
 forwards for about twenty minutes over the smooth stem of an areca 
 palm, which for convenience' sake is tied horizontally between two 
 trees. The olas, which are now of a delicate straw colour, are then 
 rolled up, and kept in store ready for use. 
 
 For ordinary books and letters, the olas are prepared from the 
 leaves of the far more abundant palmyra-palm. Even in these days, 
 when foreign manufactured paper is so cheap and abundant, the 
 palm-leaf happily still continues in favour — even the narrow fronds 
 of the cocoa-palm affording a never-failing supply of ready-made 
 writing materials, the hard mid-rib acting as a pen when no sharper 
 implement is at hand. I may add that Singhalese writing is very 
 neat and small, and it is wonderful to see what straight lines are 
 produced by writers who have no support for the strip except their 
 own left hand. 
 
 In marked contrast with these stately fan-palms, and with the 
 light waving plumes of the cocoas, are the bread-fruit trees, with their 
 masses of dark-green foliage and large pale-green fruit nestling beneath 
 separate crowns of splendid glossy leaves, deeply indented. I have 
 measured a good many of these leaves, and found some on young 
 trees which actually measured 3 feet 2 inches by 2 feet 4 inches, while 
 others on older trees averaged 21 to 25 inches in length. Each of
 
 TO THE HILLS 119 
 
 these great leaves act as a mirror to reflect the Hght, so that the 
 bread-fruit tree casts no great depth of shadow {Artocarpus incisd). 
 
 Of course everyone who sees a bread-fruit tree for the first time 
 longs to taste the natural hot buttered rolls of his childhood's fancy ; 
 but I fear the result is generally disappointing. Personally I have 
 had abundant opportunities of tasting it in all its preparations, and I 
 cannot say I greatly appreciate any of them, whether boiled or baked, 
 as in Fiji and Tahiti, or made into glutinous /w' in Hawaii. From 
 the fact that this grand tree is not even named by so accurate an 
 observer as Sir James Emerson Tennent, I assume that, common as 
 it now is, it must be one of the many importations of the last half- 
 century ; for Ceylon, like New Zealand, has proved so good a step- 
 mother to all manner of trees and flowers, that it is only by reference 
 to the earliest botanists that we can trace what plants are really 
 indigenous. 
 
 Among these, I think, we may rank a first cousin of the l)read- 
 fruit tree — namely, the jak {Artocarpus integrifolia) — a large tree with 
 less attractive foliage, which, however, casts a deeper shadow (a valu- 
 able consideration beneath a tropical noonday sun). It produces 
 the largest of all edible fruits, one tree bearing perhaps a hundred, 
 some weighing as much as sixty pounds ; and its extraordinary 
 peculiarity lies in the manner in which it carries them, hanging by 
 short thick stalks, not only from the actual trunk of the tree and the 
 thickest part of the boughs, but sometimes even from the roots ! 
 
 They are enclosed in a rough green skin, and, when ripe, the 
 interior of the fruit is a thick yellow substance, which is eaten raw, 
 and in which are embedded a number of kernels, each the size of a 
 large filbert-nut. These, if the fruit is gathered unripe, are either 
 roasted or used as a vegetable curry, much appreciated by the natives, 
 though not in favour with Europeans. The wood of the jak-tree is 
 highly valued by carpenters for making furniture, and a strong bird- 
 lime is prepared from its milky juice — not sap, the two being totally 
 distinct, as in indiarubber trees. 
 
 This milk is used as a varnish for the very gaudily painted pottery- 
 ware peculiar to Kandy, on which temple processions or scenes in 
 Buddhist mythology are depicted in the crudest and most brilliant 
 colours. Some vases are simply covered with patterns. The effect 
 is peculiar, but by no means artistic. 
 
 Next perhaps comes a wide-spreading indiarubber tree, with 
 dark thick leathery leaves and strangely twisted snake-like roots, and
 
 I20 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 then a glimpse of brown-thatched huts and blue smoke, half hidden 
 by orange and lemon, lime or shaddock trees, tall maize or sugar- 
 cane, or flowering hibiscus, with here and there the slender stem of 
 a papaw,' fifteen to twenty feet in height, supporting a crown of very 
 large beautifully cut-out leaves, beneath which hang bunches of fruit 
 like small green melons, with yellow flesh, which are either cooked 
 or eaten raw with pepper and salt. The seeds have a hot pungent 
 taste. 
 
 The fruit is considered useful as an aid to digestion, and an 
 excellent vegetable pepsine can be prepared from the green fruit by 
 mixing its milky, rather acid, juice with alcohol. The combination 
 precipitates papain, which is then dried in the sun or on a hot plate, 
 and powdered, and must be kept in well-stoppered bottles, ready for 
 use in cases of dyspepsia. It is said to be superior to the ordinary 
 animal pepsine, and has proved a valuable remedy in the treatment 
 of tapeworm. 
 
 The stem of the papaw is covered with a pretty diamond-shaped 
 pattern, and the general appearance of the plant is that of a very tall 
 umbrella. It has one very curious property — namely, that tough 
 fresh meat hung up under the shadow of its crown of leaves becomes 
 tender in a very few hours. Of course it must also be closely wrapped 
 in leaves to protect it from flies. 
 
 As we journey onward we pass clumps of graceful golden-stemmed 
 bamboos, elegant acacias, feathery tamarind-trees, which, strange to 
 say, notwithstanding the delicacy of their foliage, are found to cast 
 the coolest of all shade ; thorny coral-trees,^ which, ere the leaves 
 appear, are covered with scarlet pea-shaped blossoms ; and tall 
 perfectly upright cotton-trees,^ called by the Singhalese Katu-Imbul. 
 
 These throw out stiff lateral branches in groups of three, about 
 six feet apart, from a vividly green stem. The branches, like those 
 of the coral-tree, are loaded with cup-shaped crimson blossoms ere 
 any leaves develop, and afterwards bear large green pods, containing 
 black seeds embedded in silky white cotton, which floats away like 
 snowflakes in the sunny breeze. This silky down is called imbul- 
 pulitfi or simply pubin^ a name curiously resembling that of pulu, 
 which is the Hawaiian name for the silky brown fluff collected from 
 certain tree-ferns, and used for stuffing the softest of mattresses and 
 pillows.'' 
 
 ^ Carica papaya. '' Erythrina indica, 3 Bojnbax malabaricum. 
 
 ^ See ' Fire-Fountains of Hawaii.' By C. F. Gordon Cumming. Publislied by 
 William Blackwood & Sons.
 
 TO THE HILLS 121 
 
 Owing to the trouble of separating this cotton ox pulun from the 
 seeds, it has hitherto been collected in a very desultory way, and is 
 only used for stuffing cushions, the fibre being so short and brittle 
 that no means of spinning it has yet been discovered. Latterly, 
 however, a considerable demand for it has arisen, chiefly in Australia, 
 for stuffing mattresses, and under the Malay name of kapok a con- 
 siderable amount has been exported, but so carelessly has it hitherto 
 been prepared (with the seeds and cores left to form hard lumps, 
 and the whole, moreover, compressed into a solid mass by hydraulic 
 pressure in order to economise freight, thereby breaking the spring 
 of the fibre and destroying its elasticity) that Ceylon kapok has ac- 
 quired a bad reputation as compared with the carefully cleaned and 
 lightly packed bales of the same fibre exported from Java. 
 
 However, as wise men profit by experience, there seems no reason 
 why one bad start should be allowed to injure this trade. Personally 
 I can speak of the charm of this flossy fibre, having always travelled 
 with a pillow stuffed with some collected and cleaned by myself, with 
 the aid of a pretty Singhalese girl, and certainly no eider-down could 
 excel its softness. But I am bound to confess that the separation of 
 the fibre from the seeds was very tedious work, even with the help 
 of the deft-fingered brown maiden, and it is satisfactory to learn that 
 a ' cotton gin,' which is said to answer well, has recently been adapted 
 to this purpose. 
 
 It is hoped that some method may also be devised for turning to 
 account the strong fibrous stem, for the plant is so very accommo- 
 dating that it flourishes almost without cultivation, and at any level, 
 from the sea-coast up to 4,000 or 5,000 feet. In Java its abundance 
 is partly accounted for by the fact that its perfectly straight stems, fifty 
 or sixty feet in height, led to their use in every direction as telegraph 
 posts. These kindly put out roots, and became flourishing trees ; at 
 the same time waste lands near the villages had been planted with 
 cuttings or sown with kapok seed to keep up the supply of tall posts, 
 and so Java is now rich in the silky fibre which has become so re- 
 munerative. 
 
 I grieve that the attempt to describe what is so infinitely varied 
 to the eye must necessarily be somewhat monotonous to the reader, 
 so I must ask each to try in imagination to fill in the picturesque 
 groups of human beings, brightly dressed Tamil or Singhalese men, 
 women, and children, birds and animals, which gave life to every 
 scene.
 
 122 nVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 At the summit of the steep Kadugannawa Pass there is a monu- 
 ment to Captain Dawson, R.E., who had charge of the construction 
 of the original road up the Pass, which, for forty years before the rail- 
 way was completed, was the only means of access to the mountain 
 districts from the north and west. Captain Dawson died in 1829. 
 
 To travellers and other folk to whom time is precious, the railway 
 seems so vast an improvement on ' the old carriage-road,' that it is 
 difficult to realise the amazing change which was effected by its 
 creation only about sixty years ago (a.d. 1822). Prior to that time 
 there were only two roads even in the Maritime Provinces, and those 
 so bad as scarcely to be worthy of the name. Along these, travellers 
 were carried in palanquins, with a retinue of heavily-laden baggage 
 coolies. As to the Central Province, it was altogether inaccessible to 
 any but hill-climbers. 
 
 Kandy itself, the mountain capital, to which the railway now 
 carries us from Colombo in four hours of luxurious travel (by a route 
 which is one of the great triumphs of railway engineering) could then 
 only be approached with infinite toil by steep, rugged, narrow jungle- 
 paths, in many places dangerous for riders, and quite impossible for 
 vehicles of any description. 
 
 By these all stores of every description, whether for peace or war, 
 were carried on the backs of weary men, and the transport of big 
 guns was a matter to tax the ingenuity of the artillery. It was hard 
 enough for the men to drag the guns through deep sand along the 
 coast, but the toil of getting them up mountain passes was indescrib- 
 able. When Colonel Skinner, R.A. (father of Major Skinner, 'the 
 road-maker of Ceylon '), had to bring up his battery of heavy guns 
 for the taking of Kandy, the only way in which this could be effected 
 was by ' parbuckling the guns up from tree to tree ! ' 
 
 The worthy son of this distinguished father commenced his road- 
 making service in this very pass, so I cannot refrain from some re- 
 ference thereto, especially as I travelled over many and many a mile 
 of his broad highways. 
 
 He is one of the noble Britons who have done magnificent work 
 for their country, but who would assuredly have been rejected at the 
 outset had competitive examinations been the passport to enter her 
 service. For in his delightful autobiography ' Thomas Skinner tells 
 us that when, in a.d. 1818, at the ripe age of fourteen, he was sent 
 out from a quiet vicarage in Dorsetshire to join his father, who was 
 
 ' ' Fifty Years in Ceylon.' By Major Thomas Skinner, W, H, AUen & Co.
 
 TO THE HILLS 123 
 
 then stationed at Trincomalee, he was as ignorant as a boy of his 
 age could well be, and his father could hardly be persuaded not to 
 send him back to England to school. 
 
 Fortunately what proved to be wiser counsels prevailed, and on 
 the recommendation of two naval ofificers. Sir Robert Brownrigg, the 
 Governor, appointed him to be second lieutenant in the Ceylon Rifles, 
 with orders at once to march detachments of the 19th, 83rd, and 
 Ceylon Rifles across the Isle from Trincomalee to Colombo via 
 Kandy, by the difficult jungle-paths, which were then the sole means 
 of crossing the Island. 
 
 In the farewell address of the native chiefs to Major Skinner, just 
 fifty years later, their spokesman, Mr. James Alwis, recalled how at 
 that time, when there were no roads in the interior of Ceylon, the 
 march from Colombo to Kandy occupied about six weeks, crossing 
 malarious swamps and feverish jungle, toiling up steep ravines, climb- 
 ing over rocks, or skirting precipices. (Thinking of that journey, 
 now so pleasantly accomplished i?i four hours, my first impression 
 was that the word weeks must surely be a misprint for days ; but I 
 am told that this is not the case, the route then followed being so 
 circuitous, and the daily marches necessarily short. After the cart- 
 road was made, the journey was accomplished in five days, which 
 was the average prior to 1867, when the railway was opened.) 
 
 As the distance from Kandy to Trincomalee is much greater, 
 Tom Skinner's first military duty must have been a very serious 
 undertaking, though he accepted it quite as a matter of course, and 
 does not deem it worthy of a comment, beyond remarking that the 
 appearance of such a very small boy, dressed in his schoolboy jacket, 
 at the head of his men, caused some amusement among the officers 
 at Kandy. No wonder that, on his reporting himself at Colombo, 
 his astonished commanding officer could scarcely believe his eyes 
 when he beheld the stripling who had performed this duty. 
 
 From that time nothing came amiss to the lad. His very first 
 experience of sport, at a time when he had never even seen a tame 
 elephant, was starting off alone to meet a huge solitary elephant, with 
 remarkably fine tusks. (Barely 4 per cent, of the Ceylon elephants 
 possess tusks at all, and not one in two hundred are of any size.) 
 His terrified sergeant hastened to the rescue, but by extraordinary 
 good fortune the boy shot the giant dead, with a single shot from a 
 flint-and-steel musket, as it was rushing headlong at him — a feat 
 which delighted his men all the more from the magnificent uncon-
 
 124 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 ccrn with which \\\<i\x funn ki/che/, Mittle ofificcr,' treated the whole 
 matter ! 
 
 Before he had been a year in the island, the lad had passed 
 through more remarkable experiences than befall many men in the 
 course of a lifetime — such as finding himself left in sole charge of 
 troops cut off from all commissariat supplies, and also sole European 
 in a district where small-pox had appeared and was raging (the first 
 time it had visited Ceylon). He organised foraging parties, and 
 established a small-pox hospital under his own care — all with such 
 courtesy and wisdom as won the hearts of all the people. 
 
 Happily his superiors, both civil and military, were not slow to 
 note the young officer's remarkable genius for work. When about 
 sixteen, he was appointed by the Governor, Sir Edward Barnes, to 
 make eleven miles of the great road up the Kadugannawa Pass, by 
 which the hitherto almost inaccessible Kandyan provinces were to 
 be opened up. This was work of which he was totally ignorant. 
 His sole direction was to maintain a gradient of one in twenty, and 
 what that meant he had no idea. So when he found himself among 
 enormous boulders and perpendicular precipices, in charge of two 
 hundred untutored Kandyan villagers, he was at first thoroughly 
 perplexed ; but earnest resolution and untiring zeal inspired him 
 with a sort of instinct what to do then, as in many a subsequent 
 difificulty. 
 
 The making of that first road forms a very important era in the 
 history of Ceylon. With such energy was its construction carried 
 on, that within twelve months of the date of the order for surveying 
 and tracing it through a densely wooded mountainous country, the 
 first eighty-four miles between Colombo and Kandy was so far com- 
 pleted that the supplies for the troops could be conveyed thither on 
 wheels. Rapidly as these and other roads were surveyed and con- 
 structed, more recent engineers have had no fault to find. It was 
 splendid work, well and quickly done. 
 
 The men employed were— Jirsf, a noble force of Pioneers ; 
 secofid/y, such of the native troops as could be spared, and who were 
 fit for such work ; and tJiirdly^ the gratuitous labour of the people, 
 who by their own laws were compelled to render service to the State 
 when required to do so. 
 
 This system of Rajah-Karia, as it was called, and which under 
 the British was soon abolished, proved invaluable in those early days, 
 when used in moderation by such a Governor as Sir Edward Barnes,
 
 TO THE HILLS 125 
 
 whose wisdom and justice were revered by high and low. So greatly 
 was he esteemed that when, seventeen years after he left the Island, 
 a statue of him was erected in Colombo, so many of the natives came 
 from the interior to lay offerings of flowers, rice, and money at the 
 base of the pedestal (as is customary at their shrines), that it was 
 found necessary to surround the statue with a railing to prevent its 
 being treated as an idol ! 
 
 The Pioneer Corps here referred to is a semi-military force of 
 about 4,000 men of the very best class of Malabar labourers. They 
 were raised by Major Skinner in order that he might always have 
 trained workmen on whom he could rely for steady continuous work 
 in the making of roads, bridges, and canals ; and they continue to 
 be kept up as a valuable permanent corps, employed by the Depart- 
 ment of Public Works. 
 
 During the whole fifty years of Major Skinner's public service, 
 the story of his life is more interesting than any romance, illustrating, 
 as it docs, what could be accomplished by an unassuming man, 
 brimful of pluck, energy, self-reliance, self-help, and quiet determi- 
 nation never to refuse any work that came in his way, and never to 
 fail in anything he undertook, from conquering veteran players at 
 chess to creating a network of first-class roads all over the Isle, dis- 
 covering and opening up the long-forgotten ruined cities, restoring 
 the ruined canal system of the Maritime Provinces, and finally secur- 
 ing an enormous reduction on the estimates and actual cost of the 
 railway which was to supplant so much of his road work. 
 
 With him, to discover a difficulty was the sure preliminary to 
 conquering it ; and to such a nature there was keen delight in the 
 knowledge that his work lay either in breaking perfectly new ground, 
 or else in restoring long-neglected works, and this in an island as 
 large as Ireland. 
 
 He tells us how invaluable to him in his road-making were the 
 tracks of the herds of wild elephants, so judiciously were they in- 
 variably selected, and so well trodden. ' The top of every ridge,' he 
 says, 'had its broad road along which one could drive a carriage, 
 while from range to range one was always sure to find a cross-road 
 which invariably led to the easiest crossing of the river in the valley.' 
 That preliminary survey and much of his subsequent work in- 
 volved an amount of exposure, hardship, and actual privation of which 
 the present generation can form no conception. Fever and dysentery 
 were the almost inevitable results of life under such conditions.
 
 126 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 For six or seven months in each year he was hard at work, often 
 in most unhealthy, malarious districts, and never under shelter from 
 4 A.M. till 7 or 8 p.m. And his only tent consisted of five sheets of 
 talipot-palm leaf, stitched together with its own fibre. Each leaf 
 being about six feet by four, three leaves formed two sides and one 
 end, and the other two the roof. Along the top was a small ridge- 
 cap of the same material, and the door always stood open. Within 
 this leaf-tent stood his camp-bed, table, and chair ; and as one set 
 of leaves, value a trifle over a shilling, lasted him for a whole season, 
 he reckoned that his quarters were not expensive ! 
 
 At one time, when he was surveying in the wilderness of the Peak 
 (which was then an unbroken expanse of about 500 square miles of 
 splendid forest), his only food during two months consisted — with the 
 exception of rice and of some wild forest roots — of five miserable 
 chickens, three of which had died from wet and cold on their ascent 
 of the Holy Mount, and so small a quantity of salt fish, that he could 
 only allow himself about one square inch for each meal. He was 
 always a model of temperance in all things, to which he attributed 
 much of his amazing gift of health under most adverse circum- 
 stances. 
 
 His own account of his life at this time is of such interest to many 
 who would fain emulate his powers as a mountaineer, that I am 
 tempted to quote it in full. He says : ' On beginning my season's 
 work I found it necessary to discipline myself as to the amount of 
 liquid I took ; and for ten days I suffered terribly, as the exposure to 
 the sun, with the great amount of work I had to go through, caused 
 the most profuse perspirations, and an almost irresistible longing to 
 put my head into every mountain brook I crossed, to quench my 
 burning thirst. I sometimes assuaged it for a time by putting a bit 
 of areca-nut in my mouth, its stringency giving me temporary relief ; 
 but by persevering in this course of abstinence for a few days, I found 
 life became more bearable. 
 
 ' My allowance of liquid during the day was a small cup of coffee 
 before I started in the morning ; breakfast during these two months 
 consisted only of a bit of cake made of rice-flour and water, a biscuit 
 or two, and a cup of cold tea which I carried in a small bottle. In 
 the evening my dinner was boiled rice and a small bit of salt fish, or 
 sometimes some jungle roots made into a curry, a glass of sherry 
 mixed with an equal quantity of water ; and after dinner, a cup of 
 coffee with my cigar.
 
 TO THE HILLS 127 
 
 'All the liciLiid I took during the day did not exceed one imperial 
 pint ; this regime brought me into such splendid working condition, 
 that I could outrun anyone. One very active headman begged me 
 to give him an opportunity of racing me up the cone of Adam's Peak. 
 We started, and he went off at a great pace, and was out of sight in 
 a few minutes, but three-quarters of a mile was sufficient to blow him. 
 I passed him, and was on the summit forty minutes before him. In 
 like manner I could leave all the athletes of a village behind me.' 
 
 His working staff at that time consisted of African soldiers, con- 
 sidered the hardiest men in the British army. He says he often 
 longed for a taste of their savoury meals, but resisted the temptation, 
 fearing lest their provisions might run short. They were on full 
 rations of salt beef or pork, rice, curry stuffs, and arrack, and were 
 allowed two days in camp for each day on field-work with their leader 
 (who was out hard at work every day), yet by the time they reached 
 Nuwara Eliya every man except himself was laid up. 
 
 Before the close of the season, however, he suffered severely from 
 sore legs, resulting from poverty of blood, consequent on deficient 
 animal food. But the habit then acquired of limiting his allowance 
 of fluid continued a lasting advantage, as to the end of his life he 
 says he never knew what thirst meant. 
 
 This seems a long digression, but seeing how enormously I as a 
 mere traveller have benefited by Major Skinner's labours, it would be 
 the height of ingratitude not to add my small chirp of thanks to the 
 chorus which is his due. 
 
 When he finally left the island in 1867, his fifty years of incessant 
 work was thus summarised in the Ceylon Observer : ' He has 
 survived to see a magnificient network of roads spread over the 
 country, from the sea-level to the passes of our highest mountain 
 ranges ; and instead of dangerous fords and ferries, where property 
 often suffered and life was too frequently sacrificed, he has lived to 
 sec every principal stream in Ceylon substantially bridged, or about 
 to be spanned by structures of stone or iron. Whereas before his 
 time there were, strictly speaking, "no roads in the island," Ceylon, 
 with an area of 25,000 miles, can now count nearly 3,000 miles of 
 made roads, one-fifth of which consist of first-class metalled roads, 
 and another fifth of excellent gravelled highways.' 
 
 Add to all this the restoration of inland navigation — that canal 
 system by which we travelled so pleasantly to Puttalam and Kalpitiya — 
 and the impetus given to many another public work, and we have the
 
 128 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 bare outline of such a life of unselfish usefuhiess to his fellow-men as 
 few have been privileged to show. 
 
 When we reached the high pass of Kadugannawa, we were on the 
 watershed which divides the tributaries of the Kelani-ganga and Maha- 
 Oya on the west coast from those of the Maha-velli-ganga, which, after 
 a north-easterly course of about 130 miles, enters the sea near Trin- 
 comalee. 
 
 Descending to Peradeniya Station, we found ourselves on the 
 brink of that broad still river — the Maha-velli-ganga or Great Sandy 
 river — all fringed wnth beautiful tufts of feathery bamboo. The old 
 road of which I have just spoken crosses the river by a noble bridge 
 entirely built of satin-wood, constructed in 1832 without the use of a 
 single nail or bolt, and still, to all appearance, as sound as ever. It 
 spans the river with a single arch 205 feet wide, which, when the 
 stream is in its normal condition, stands 70 feet above the water, but 
 in time of flood scarcely clears it by 10 feet. 
 
 The railway crosses the stream very near the road-bridge, and a 
 five miles' run would have taken us to Kandy, the mountain capital, 
 1,600 feet above the sea ; but that pleasure was reserved for later, after 
 I had visited Nuwara Eliya, ' the City of the Open Plain,' which is 
 the Island sanatorium, and the third Government station — i.e. the 
 third place where the Governor has an official residence. So, instead 
 of going north, we turned due south, following the course of the beau- 
 tiful river to Gampola, which was then the terminus. Now, the rail- 
 way carries passengers by a much more circuitous route, and easier 
 gradient, right up to Nanu-Oya, which is only five miles from Nuwara 
 Eliya, and 5,600 feet above the sea, a considerable rise in a run of 130 
 miles from Colombo. Nuwara Eliya itself is 6,222 feet above the sea. 
 So now the admirably engineered road by which we travelled is com- 
 paratively forsaken. 
 
 The whole route was beautiful, and to me a delightful novelty 
 was the luxuriance of the fragrant datura with its large white trumpet- 
 shaped blossoms, each 10 or 12 inches in length, of which we think 
 so much if we see a dozen on a greenhouse shrub. Here there 
 were great masses of it growing as freely as our own yellow broom, 
 and 12 or 15 feet in height, Colonists call it the fever-plant, believing 
 that it produces fever, and so object to its growth near houses, or 
 keep it closely trimmed as a garden hedge. What it does produce is 
 a dangerous drug, which occasionally figures in cases of poisoning. 
 In various instances robbers have induced the family cook, or some
 
 a 
 
 rt 
 
 ■ hi 
 
 
 " to 
 
 
 
 mt^
 
 TO THE HILLS 129 
 
 other person having access to the kitchen, to drop a few pills made 
 of datura-juice into the soup or coffee, and sometimes, to ' mak 
 sikker,' into every course, so that no one can escape scot-free. 
 
 All along the river the vegetation is a dream of beauty. Tall 
 cocoa, areca, and beautiful kitool palms tower above a rich under- 
 growth of broad-leaved plantains, ferns, and gay caladiums, or the 
 blue-green of the handsome castor-oil plant, • while in some reaches, 
 the gigantic plumes of the ever-graceful bamboo overhang the water. 
 Then perhaps we pass a stretch of vividly green paddy-fields, divided 
 by low terraces of red soil, following every natural curve of the land ; 
 so that is never a stiff straight line such as bounds our British fields. 
 And all this, with the reflections in the still river, are only the fore- 
 ground to a panorama of beautiful hills. 
 
 At Gampola a carriage was waiting to take us up-country, but by 
 some mistake no coolies were forthcoming to carry our baggage, none 
 of which overtook us till the following day ! We halted at Pussilawa, 
 and ere night reached ' The Delta,' a charming home with a lovely 
 garden, which in that month of March (bleak March in Britain) was 
 fragrant with the mingled perfume of roses and jasmines, gardenias, 
 honeysuckle, heliotropes, salvias, mignonette, violets, lilies and pinks, 
 myrtles, magnolias, oleanders, and loquat ; and gay, moreover, with 
 luxuriant convolvuli, fuchsias, and bignonias, brilliantly variegated 
 caladium leaves, fantastic crotons, and beautiful climbing passion- 
 flowers and tacsonias, covered with large crimson stars. Add to these 
 many vividly green parrakeets and other birds of bright plumage, and 
 gay butterflies, and perhaps you can realise something of the charm 
 of that garden. 
 
 How enchanting was the peace of the following day, resting on 
 dry green turf beneath the cool shade of large orange-trees, laden 
 with green and golden fruit and fragrant blossom, the grass around 
 us strewn with delicious ripe fruit and snowy petals ; while beyond 
 the foreground of luxuriant garden-flowers lay undulating hills all 
 clothed with the glossy green of flourishing coffee estates, right up to 
 Peacock Hill, whose broad blue shadows looked temptingly cool con- 
 trasted with the hot haze which veiled the low country we had just left ! 
 
 In this sweet home we halted for three days to enable the Bishop 
 to hold Sunday services at Pussilawa and meet a™number of the 
 planters. 
 
 Then once more we took the road, gradually rising up the 
 
 ' Palma Christi.
 
 I30 TJVO NAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Kotmalcc valley, till wc reached the foot of the Rumboclda Pass, 
 where we found shelter in a comfortable rest-house. Here the ascent 
 commences in real earnest, the rise in the remaining fourteen miles 
 being 3,000 feet. The road enters the gorge between two picturesque 
 waterfalls, about a hundred feet in height, one on either hand, their 
 cool white spray being a vision of delight in the scorching heat of 
 noon. Oddly enough, in rainy weather, one of these comes down in 
 turbulent red flood, laden with soil from the hills, while the other 
 remains clear and sparkling. One is the Puna-ella, and the other 
 the Garunda ella, and both flow down to join the Maha-velli-ganga. 
 Below the bridge the rocks are curiously water-worn into pot-holes of 
 all sizes, like those in the bed of the Findhorn, which we suppose to 
 be produced by the ceaseless whirling round of shingle. 
 
 The road winds up the pass by a succession of steep zigzags at 
 a gradient of about one in fourteen — very trying for the teams of 
 strong handsome white oxen, which drag up large covered bullock- 
 carts, heavily laden with all luxuries and necessaries of life for Nuwara 
 Eliya — or, rather, did so before the completion of the railway to 
 Nanuoya. Formerly this pass was beautifully wooded, and indeed 
 the whole road to Nuwara Eliya lay through dense forest, all of which 
 has long since been felled and burnt to make room for the very 
 monotonous little coffee-bushes, now almost replaced by the equally 
 monotonous tea-bushes. I say ' almost,' because, taught by dire 
 experience, wise planters no longer carry all their eggs in one basket, 
 so that the cultivation is varied by that of the very ornamental cacao 
 or chocolate trees and other products. 
 
 A little above the head of the pass, at a point where the road winds 
 so as to form a huge letter S, stands Pallagolla, a very small bungalow 
 which the Bishop had rented for a couple of months. Here we found 
 Valentine, his excellent Singhalese servant, hard at work making all 
 cosy — a task in which we all lent a hand with some success. 
 
 A tiny streamlet flowing through the big family bath assured an 
 ample supply of fresh water, and tempted me out to trace its course. 
 The clear crystal waters glanced so joyously in the bright sunshine as 
 they sped downward to the valley, strewn with snowy petals of fra- 
 grant coffee-blossom, that they enticed me farther and farther, till I 
 came to a level patch of tempting green, where the babbling of the 
 stream was hushed ; and here, to my delight, I recognised in the 
 luxuriant weed the familiar watercress, dear through association with 
 so many a sparkling stream and quiet pool in the old mother country.
 
 TO THE HILLS 131 
 
 I confess that to mc the charm of watercresses has been rudely 
 shaken ever since discovering that those I had gathered in one of the 
 sweetest districts of Perthshire were swarming with minute leeches 
 which could scarcely be dislodged even when soaked in salt and water. 
 But that source of danger had not then suggested itself, so I feasted 
 undismayed, and gathered as many as it was possible to carry back. 
 
 Then noting a prominent point from which to obtain a good view 
 of the valley, I made my way thither, and of course found it was much 
 farther and steeper than I had imagined ; but once there, the glory of 
 sunset-colouring was such that I was in no hurry to descend, seeing 
 a path near me, and never doubting that it would lead me straight 
 home. This, you see, was my first evening alone in the coffee coun- 
 try, and little didl dream of the labyrinth of zigzag foot-tracks which 
 checkered those steep hillsides. 
 
 I soon realised that the path I had struck was leading me quite 
 astray, and the next I tried was evidently no better. The rapid dark- 
 ness was fast closing in, when to my great joy I espied a light far 
 below me, and, nothing doubting, made that my guiding star. But a 
 few moments later another and another light appeared, and soon 
 glimmering lights surrounded me on every side, a good many seeming 
 stationary, and many more flashing to and fro in a most bewildering 
 manner. (I never now hear the words of ' Lead, kindly Light,' 
 without a vivid recollection of that evening, when earth's many lights 
 proved so perplexing.) 
 
 Of course I quickly realised that the flashing lights were fire- 
 beetles, and most of the stationary ones glow-worms, including, how- 
 ever, sundry coolies' houses, and my own particular beacon. At last 
 I succeeded in reaching a coolie's house, and hopefully inquired for 
 ' Pallagolla ? ' ' Bishop's bungalow ? ' without eliciting the faintest 
 glimmer of understanding. I had still to learn that the Tamil coolies 
 have names of their own for every estate, and the names by which 
 they are known to Europeans convey no meaning whatever to them. 
 Happily I very soon afterwards struck the high-road at the head of the 
 big s, 'ind that little anxiety was at an end. 
 
 Two days later I proceeded up the valley to Nuwara Eliya, first 
 on a visit to the Governor,' and afterwards to several other friends, 
 so that the pleasant weeks slipped rapidly by ere I returned to this 
 little nest in the coffee. 
 
 * Sir William Gregory.
 
 TIVO BAPPy YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 NUWARA ELIYA 
 
 Spring foliage — Iron wood — Potato-tree — Rhododendron — The patenas — Horton 
 Plains— Lcnion-grass — Lake Gregory — Gardens — Church — An exhilarating climate 
 — Various expeditions — Migration of butterflies — Descriptive names— Nillo— Bees 
 — Hak-galla Gardens. 
 
 Starting in the cool of early morning (preceded by sundry coolies 
 burdened with my baggage) I walked up-hill to a point where the 
 Governor's carriage awaited me, the drive thence to ' The City of the 
 Open Plain ' being simply exquisite, the deep wooded gorge of a river 
 something like our own l:)eautiful Findhorn,' with dark peat-eoloured 
 water, and with foliage tints as vivid as ours in October, but having 
 this advantage, namely, that the brilliant tints — primrose, gold, 
 scarlet, deep crimson, claret, and tender green^ — are not, as in Britain 
 or America, precursors of death and of leafless winter and frozen 
 forests, but stages in progressive life, where the young scarlet, yellow, 
 and orange coloured foliage of the ironwood and of some other trees 
 turns crimson and purple, bronze and maroon, ere it settles down to 
 the sober greens of maturity. 
 
 Such is the inverted order of things in this land of ceaseless 
 summer, where autumn, winter, and spring are terms of no meaning, 
 because Nature carries on her ceaseless work all the year round, and 
 at the same moment that the forest trees cast their withered leaves, 
 the young fresh foliage is continually bursting into new beauty. 
 
 Near Pussilawa we had halted fairly dumb with surprise at the 
 gorgeousness of a whole ironwood-tree,'' all vividly scarlet, save that 
 its stem and boughs were entirely clothed by a brilliant glossy-green 
 creeper. This pyramid of fire stood close to a large 'potato-tree,'^ 
 so called because its blossoms are exactly like those of our common 
 potato, only thrice their size ; and when you see a tree the size of an 
 average oak literally covered with these splendid purple and white 
 blossoms it is something to remember, especially when you chance, 
 
 1 In Morayshire ; the loveliest river in Scotland, whose dark brown waters flow 
 through deep gorges clothed with birch and fir trees, bird-cherry, wild-cherry, and 
 alder, which in autumn turn scarlet and crimson, green and gold. 
 
 2 Messitaferrca, '• It belongs to the family of the Solan acece^
 
 NmVARA ELIYA 133 
 
 as \vc did, to see beneath it a group of gaily dressed and bejewelled 
 Tamil women and children. 
 
 But on the present occasion the ' new sensation ' lay in the fact 
 that I had attained the region of bright crimson rhododendron-trees, 
 growing side by side with splendid daturas and real tree-ferns, the 
 latter especially luxuriating in every damp ravine. This was quite 
 the end of March, and the rhododendrons were only just beginning 
 to show colour. They did not attain their full glory till the beginning 
 of May, by which time a group of such trees, or a solitary old tree, 
 perhaps forty feet in height, cutting clear against a blue sky, was truly 
 a thing of beauty. I am bound to say, however, that I have seen 
 many rowan-trees • in Scotland quite as richly laden with bunches of 
 pure scarlet, and gleaming in the sunlight against as cloudless and 
 blue a sky. 
 
 The latter is by no means a marked characteristic of these 
 mountain regions, where I was much struck by the prevalence of 
 cool grey skies, frequent rain, and such misty effects as we are wont 
 to associate with our Scotch Highlands. I am told that in October 
 and November the sun scarcely shines for half an hour at a time, 
 and that the cheerless fogs are really depressing. Nevertheless, the 
 clear intervening days are the loveliest of the year. 'The season,' 
 however, is from January to the end of May, during which time 
 visitors abound. 
 
 As regards the date of the rhododendron flowering, I may 
 mention that when, in the following year, I ascended Adam's Peak 
 at the end of January, I found the trees on the very summit in full 
 beauty. They continue in blossom till about July. There are two 
 distinct varieties. That which grows on the highest elevations, and 
 is said to be peculiar to Ceylon, is a tall tree with small narrow 
 leaves, silvery on the under side. It sometimes grows to a height of 
 about sixty feet, and the twisted gnarled stem is often about eighteen 
 inches in diameter. The commoner sort has broader leaves, which 
 arc brown on the under side. Here and there among the general 
 scarlet, one sees a pink variety, and even a few rare trees whose pink 
 blossoms are mottled with white. 
 
 The black peaty soil of Nuwara Eliya suits the rhododendron to 
 perfection, and it grows freely along the banks of the main stream, 
 which meanders through the plain, as also beside the numerous 
 tributary rivulets. 
 
 1 Mountain-ash.
 
 !34 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLOM 
 
 I can never forget my first views of this Elysium when, after 
 toiHng steadily up-hill to the end of the eleventh mile from Ram- 
 bodda, we reached the dividing summit 6,600 feet above the sea, 
 which, in the exquisite morning light, lay clear on the horizon beyond 
 a wide expanse of lowland, with the lovely river-gorge for a fore- 
 ground. This was looking back. Then looking forward through a 
 framework of most luxuriant and fragrant daturas, graceful tree-ferns, 
 and many-coloured foliage, I beheld the charming valley still two 
 miles distant, and about 400 feet lower than the summit where the 
 carriage halted to let horses breathe and human beings admire. 
 
 Great must have been the surprise of the first Europeans who, 
 when in pursuit of big game through the dense mountain forest, 
 accidentally discovered this cool, delightful grassy plain, three miles 
 in length and about eight in circumference, lying in the very heart of 
 the mountains, about 6,200 feet above the sea. Singhalese and 
 Hindoo legends account for its existence by saying that the monkey- 
 god Hanuman set fire to this forest when he came to rescue the 
 beautiful queen Sita, wife of Rama, from captivity in the hands 
 of Ravana the demon-king. Hence the beautiful and romantic 
 stream flowing from the plain towards Hak-galla bears the name of 
 Sita Ella. 
 
 This, however, is but one of a series of high table-lands (growing 
 only coarse lemon-scented grass, rhododendrons, and a few small 
 shrubs) which lie at different elevations in the midst of this sea of 
 mountain-ranges, like level terraces with precipitous edges, so that 
 they have been likened to a succession of vast ledges. The highest 
 of these, about twenty miles from Nuwara Eliya, and about a thousand 
 feet higher, is known to Europeans as the Horton Plains (so called 
 in honour of Sir Robert Horton), but to the Singhalese as the Maha 
 Eliya or Great Plains, or, more literally, ' The great cleared place.' 
 
 They form a level about five miles long by two broad, surrounded 
 by low wooded slopes rising to 7,800 feet above the sea-level. The 
 plains are clothed with rank bright green grass, buttercups, ground 
 orchids, and ferns innumerable. In place of palms we have tall tree- 
 ferns thirty feet in height, their slender black shining stems supporting 
 a crown of fronds twelve feet in length. 
 
 Black peat soil favours the luxuriant growth of rhododendrons, 
 and tufts of dwarf bamboo which border clear streamlets, one of 
 which forms the Bilhool-Oya, which flows seaward through Saffragam. 
 Here also rises the Maha-velli-ganga, which hence descends to the
 
 Jf ^^^ 
 

 
 NUIVARA ELIYA 135 
 
 low country by a succession of rapids through narrow rocky gorges, 
 each leading to another plain — in all, upwards of a dozen. At each 
 of these the river is transformed from a wild headlong torrent to a 
 broad calm stream, flowing peacefully through grassy levels — favourite 
 pastures for wild deer. 
 
 It is a beautiful day's ride from Nuwara J'^liya through the forest 
 and across the patenas, and then up Totapella to the pass, whence 
 you look back on Nuwara Eliya far below, and then ride on a couple 
 of miles through forests all bearded with golden moss, till you reach 
 the Horton Plains ready for a sound sleep in a pleasant rest-house. 
 
 Here there is ample space for a very much larger sanatorium 
 than Nuwara Eliya, upon far richer soil, and amid incomparably 
 grander scenery, for all along the southern side it ends in precipitous 
 cliffs, forming a perpendicular rock rampart of about 5,000 feet down 
 to the primeval and still beast-haunted forest below. The plains 
 comprise an extent of about twenty square miles of level or gently 
 undulating land, with rich soil capable of growing anything. There 
 is every reason to suppose that ere very long this must become the 
 true mountain capital, and be to Ceylon what Ootacamund is to 
 Madras — the Elysium to which wives and children of busy men may 
 be sent for as complete a change of climate as is generally necessary. 
 And by the creation of a new railway to Uva, they will be carried in 
 luxurious railway carriages direct from Colombo to a station within 
 three miles of these grand plains. 
 
 Even at Nuwara Eliya, which is a thousand feet lower, the pale 
 children who have lost all their roses in the heat of the low country, 
 quickly regain them and look the very picture of health ; and thus 
 they may safely be kept in Ceylon till about twelve years of age, when 
 a return to British climate is generally recommended. 
 
 But, in truth, the doctors of the future will be able to select the 
 exact elevation they deem desirable, for Ijetween the Horton Plains 
 and Nuwara Eliya lie the Totapella Plains, about 700 feet lower than 
 the former, while nine miles to the north of Nuwara EHya, at a some- 
 what lower level, lie the grassy Elephant Plains ; six miles to the 
 west, still somewhat lower, commences the grand district of Dimboola, 
 once forest-clad, but now all under cultivation. 
 
 Nine miles to the east of Nuwara Eliya, but about 1,500 feet 
 below it, stretches the vast, thickly peopled district of Uva, which 
 has been compared to the Sussex Downs on a gigantic scale, 
 comprising as it does an extent of about six hundred square miles of
 
 t36 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 undulating open grass-land, varied only by the rice-crops raised by the 
 miserably poor and hitherto utterly neglected inhabitants of about 
 eight hundred villages scattered over innumerable small valleys. 
 Happily the grass which clothes this grand district is really rich 
 short grass, easy to walk over — a very different matter from the 
 enormously tall rank mana and lemon grasses which grow in the rich 
 soil below forest-ranges. These far overtop the toiling human being 
 who has to struggle through them, shutting out all breeze, while con- 
 centrating the sun on his luckless head ; moreover, his hands are 
 sure to be painfully cut by the sharp serrated edges of the grass. 
 
 These grand Uva downs are, as it were, a vast mountain terrace, 
 built up above the lowlands, from which they are divided by a mighty 
 boundary of precipitous crags. 
 
 Besides these there are several other grassy plateaux, such as the 
 Elk Plains, the Maturata, the Moonstone Plains, the Kondapalle 
 Plain, the Agra, and the Bopatalawa Plains, or Patenas as they are 
 commonly called. They are of all sizes, and lie like islands in the 
 , midst of the surrounding sea of forest. The lemon and mana grass 
 with which they are clothed, though affording fair pasture when 
 young, rapidly grow up into coarse tufts seven or eight feet in height, 
 most unpalatable to cattle, so the natives periodically set fire to it, 
 when there ensues a glorious blaze. The sweeping flames rush on 
 with a subdued roar and crackling, and showers of sparks, but so 
 lightly as not to scorch the roots, which are fed by the charcoal thus 
 produced, and only need a few days' rain in order, phoenix-like, to 
 renew their life, and then the blackened hills and plains are clothed 
 with tenderest green, affording fair pasture till the grass again grows 
 too coarse. While short it is gemmed with many a dainty flower. 
 In the month of May true blue-bells of Scotland (campanula — not 
 blue hyacinth) abound, as also, on swampy ground, true golden 
 buttercups. In some places the patenas are yellow with a ground 
 orchid, suggesting a field of daffodils with a faint fragrance like prim- 
 roses. In some places sweet violets grow freely. 
 
 In the late autumn, however, after the summer's drought, the 
 patenas are no longer beautiful, but all clothed with parched yellow 
 grasses, with here and there broad blackened tracts marking where the 
 shepherds have fired the grass for next year's growth. 
 
 The natives prepare from the leaves of the lemon-grass a medicinal 
 infusion with a bitter flavour and strong aromatic smell. From it 
 also is manufactured the citronella oil of commerce, which, amongst
 
 NUIVARA ELIYA 137 
 
 other useful properties, is effectual in checking the growth of the 
 fungus — a sort of luxuriant mildew — which works such ruin in 
 museums and collections of all sorts. 
 
 The grass from which the oil has been distilled is valuable as fuel 
 where firewood has become scarce owing to the wholesale destruction 
 of timber. Now, however, it has been discovered that this refuse 
 from the oil-factories can be turned to profitable account in the pre- 
 paration of strawboard, for which there is an enormous demand for 
 the manufacture of boxes in which to pack tea for the rapidly in- 
 creasing export. Another article hitherto deemed useless is the 
 niana-grass which grows so luxuriantly on the hills, from which it has 
 recently been discovered that, with the addition of one-fourth of 
 coarse waste-paper or old sacking, a strong flexible millboard can be 
 prepared, much tougher and less brittle than that which is made 
 from wheat-straw. So it appears that these long-despised grasses are 
 likely to take a prominent place among fibre-yielding plants, and to 
 start a new local industry. 
 
 These plains do not always exactly correspond to our interpre- 
 tation of the word. For instance, the Totapella Plains are a most 
 singular geological formation, the so-called plains being closely covered 
 by several hundred grassy conical hills, each about a hundred feet 
 high, like tumuli of the giants. A deep river winds circuitously amid 
 these, and they are surrounded by forest-covered hills, a group of 
 which occupy the centre of these very unlevel plains. 
 
 The soil of these patenas is generally dark and peaty, and the 
 early settlers hoped that it would prove easy of cultivation ; but they 
 found that it was so unfertile that literally nothing would grow with- 
 out such heavy manure as was too costly to be profitable, and that 
 it really paid better to fell and clear forest land, even with the toil of 
 rooting out every stump, one of which sometimes cost the work of 
 two men for three days ! 
 
 As we look now on the splendid crops of English vegetables — 
 potatoes, peas, cabbages, carrots, turnips, and beans, the good straw- 
 berries and other fruits, and the luxuriant fields of sw^eet white clover, 
 dear to the busy bees, it is hard to realise all the difficulties and disap- 
 pointments which Sir Samuel Baker had to face and conquer, when 
 in 1848 he and his brother resolved to establish a real English farm 
 and village on the estate which still bears their name on the Moon 
 Plains at the eastern end of Nuwara Eliya. 
 
 They took out a good English bailiff, a blacksmith, and about
 
 138 TtVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 a dozen emigrants, with all manner of farm implements, machinery, 
 grain, and animals, not forgetting a pack of fox-hounds. When with 
 infinite trouble the soil had been prepared, the first crop of oats was 
 devoured by elk and wild hogs, who here held grand midnight 
 festivals. In like manner, the first crop of potatoes was entirely con- 
 sumed by grubs. The animals almost died of starvation ; twenty-six 
 fine bullocks did die of some disease, and five fine Australian horses 
 died the first year. However, patience and perseverance were re- 
 warded in due time, and the scheme, which was at first deemed so 
 foolish, ere long proved eminently successful, the naturally unfertile 
 land being found capable, in response to very generous manuring, of 
 yielding four crops of potatoes in the year ! 
 
 Although the settlement is entirely a creation of the last sixty 
 years, and there is no trace of any ancient building, there is some 
 reason to believe that, like many other places in the Island, once 
 populous and then totally abandoned, this verdant plain must at one 
 time have been of some importance to the Kandyan kings. The 
 steep descent towards Badulla is still known as 'The Path of a 
 Thousand Princes,' and leads past ' The Valley of Rubies,' a name 
 which suggests another hidden source of fame and profit in the days 
 when gem-hunting was a royal monopoly. All these plains are 
 studded with deep pits, telling of ancient as well as modern gem- 
 diggers. 
 
 But the chief importance of the high levels in ancient days was 
 their command of the water-supply for irrigation, which was led in 
 every direction by most carefully constructed watercourses, aque- 
 ducts, and canals. Traces of these remain in many a spot now 
 visited only by some chance sportsman, and hillsides once carefully 
 terraced and cultivated have now relapsed to their original wild 
 state. 
 
 Here it was that Donna Catherina, the child-queen of Kandy (so 
 proclaimed by the Portuguese), found refuge when in later years she 
 was driven from her stormy throne ; but the place does not seem to 
 have been visited by any European till Dr. Davy came here in 181 9, 
 after which it was forgotten, till rediscovered in 1826, when the 
 Governor, General Barnes, at once resolved to establish a sanatorium 
 here, with barracks and ofiicers' quarters, and to build a residence 
 for himself, all of good solid stone-work. Barnes Hall is to this day 
 one of the best houses in the little colony of from thirty to forty neat 
 little villas and cottages — not bungalows as in the low country, but
 
 NUWARA ELIYA 139 
 
 stonc-huilt houses with chimneys, whose 'reek' is a very charac- 
 teristic feature in the landscape. Each stands in its own pleasant 
 garden, and these lie scattered on a succession of grassy knolls, all 
 along the base of the wooded mountains in which the plain lies 
 embosomed. 
 
 Right above it tower Kiklomanee and Pidaru-tala-galla ; the 
 latter, though not remarkable for beauty of form, is the highest 
 mountain in Ceylon — height, 8,295 ^'2^^ — and is happily still clothed 
 with forest to the very summit — forest, moreover, which is all hard- 
 wood, for we are now quite beyond the region of palms, and there 
 was not a pine or fir tree in the island till they were recently accli- 
 matised in nursery gardens. Here rises the Nanu-Oya, which forms 
 one of the affluents of the Maha-velU-ganga,' but which here is only 
 a sparkling stream meandering through the valley. By means of an 
 artificial embankment at the farther end, designed and carried out 
 by Sir William Gregory, a marshy piece of ground^ all reeds and 
 rushes, has been transformed into a beautiful little lake which bears 
 his name. (It is said that this whole valley must at some prehistoric 
 time have been the bed of a mountain lake.) 
 
 Thanks to the unwearied care of Mr. Le Mesurier, Lake Gregory, 
 and also the streams which water the Horton Plains, are now abun- 
 dantly stocked with carp and trout, some of the latter being over three 
 pounds weight. The breeding-pond was dug out of solid cabook 
 (laterite), paved with pebbles, and lined with watercresses, under 
 which the fry found refuge, and also insects to their liking, including 
 tiny shrimps which abound in the mountain streams, as do also 
 small crabs, which find favour with growm-up trout, but are dangerous 
 to the fry.'-^ 
 
 Otters also prove such formidable foes to all freshwater fish that 
 a raid against them is now being made with a view to their extermina- 
 tion. It always seems hard that any interesting wild creature should 
 have to be totally sacrificed for the preservation of game of any sort, 
 whether finny, furred, or feathered, but it is certain that the Nuwara 
 Eliya otters are doomed. On the other hand, there is good hope 
 
 1 The true source of the Maha-velli-ganga is on Adam's Peak. 
 
 ' Mr. Le Mesurier's care for the fish-supply of the colony is not confined to fresh- 
 water pools and streams. He has shown that an inexhaustible harvest of excellent 
 grey mullet, one of the best of sea-fish, might easily be secured by a simple system of 
 barriers to protect the spawn and young fry, which are hatched in inlets so far in-shore 
 that during their infancy they might easily be thus guarded from predatory fish and 
 native fishermen.
 
 I40 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 tliat if only ihcy can be left undisturbed, the little grebe and other 
 aquatic birds which have already discovered this new high-level lake 
 may take to it as an habitual haunt, undisturbed by the stately swans 
 which already float on the still waters. 
 
 A curious and unexpected benefit resulting from the formation of 
 this lake, now swarming with fish, is a most marked diminution in 
 the legions of bloodthirsty mosquitoes, which formerly bred undis- 
 turbed in the marsh. Now each individual carp and trout is on the 
 qui vive to secure for itself a share in that daintiest of morsels, mos- 
 quito larvae ; and seeing how surprising is the fecundity of the mos- 
 quito, it follows that each which is thus consumed represents the 
 annihilation of a multitude of foes. 
 
 In his interesting book on 'Tank Angling in India,' Mr. H. S. 
 Thomas says : ' One female mosquito laying at the commencement 
 of the year loo eggs would at the end of the month be found the 
 parent of loo jiiosquitos, of which 50 would be females. In the 
 second month 50 females laying each 100 eggs, would yield 5,000 
 larvae. In the third month 2,500 females x 100 eggs = 250,000 
 larvse. In the fourth 12,500,000 larvae, and so on, until at the end 
 of the twelve months there would be 488,281,250,000,000,000,000 
 larvae.' 
 
 The lesson to be practically applied would seem to be that all 
 mosquito-breeding tanks and pools should be cleaned, cleared of all 
 predatory fish, and stocked with carp, which seem to multiply almost 
 as rapidly as the mosquitoes, and will therefore supply never-failing 
 armies to do battle with our foes. 
 
 The change of climate from Colombo to Nuwara Eliya is sur- 
 prising. Here, within 7° of the equator, I believe the thermometer 
 never exceeds 72° Fahr. at noon in summer, and at night it some- 
 times falls below freezing-point, so that in the early morning I have 
 often seen the ground white with hoar-frost, and have been thankful 
 for a thick plaid and a warm tweed dress, and this not only in the 
 chill of frosty mornings and evenings, but even at noon on many a 
 cold rainy day. Snow is, of course, absolutely unknown in Ceylon. 
 For the first week after my arrival the rainfall was excessive, pouring 
 as if the very heavens were coming down — pitiless pouring rain — 
 and the ceaseless drip, drip, drip from the soaked thatch was most 
 depressing. Weak corners were revealed by unsightly leaks ; the 
 ground was saturated, and the paths were all muddy rivulets. Sketch- 
 ing was hopeless, and I fully appreciated the reasons why houses
 
 NUIVARA ELIYA 141 
 
 here are built of stone and have fireplaces, with fires morning and 
 evening, round which friends gather as naturally as if in Europe. 
 
 The heavy rainfall fills the numerous clear brown streams which 
 rush down every ravine of the dark hills, and very gloomy these often 
 seem when capped with gathering clouds and grey drift, clothing the 
 green forests in sombre purple and blue shadows ; but when the sun 
 conquers, then you have a climate like that of our very loveliest 
 summer days in Scotland : the crisp clear air is so marvellously in- 
 vigorating and inspiriting that every breath is an elixir, and the mere 
 fact of existence is a delight, renewed with every breath of an atmo- 
 sphere so exhilarating that even the feeblest folk find themselves 
 endued with exhaustless energies. 
 
 Mornings, evenings, and moonlight are each more enchanting 
 than words can tell, and all alike perfumed with the breath of English 
 clover from cultivated fields, mingling with that of mignonette, 
 musk, stocks, pansies, violets, lilies, carnations, phloxes, sweet-peas, 
 honeysuckle, azaleas, and all manner of fragrant garden flowers ; and 
 you look up from gardens, where heavenly roses, geranium, fuchsia, 
 chrysanthemum, camellias, and heliotrope are luxuriant bushes, to 
 the beautiful mountains encircling the plain, where the sparkling 
 rivulet winds about through thickets of wild roses, yellow watde im- 
 ported from Australia, golden gorse — real whins, exactly the same as 
 our own, fragrant and home-like — with foxgloves, and blue-bells, 
 brambles and bracken, growing side by side with the magnificent 
 tree-ferns and the scarlet rhododendron-trees, and masses of snowy 
 datura, the latter dipping in the stream their graceful boughs, heavy 
 with the weight of beautiful trumpet-shaped blossoms. And of minor 
 flowers, there are our own buttercup, foxglove, and common white 
 clover, and white violets (which, however, are scentless), and a most 
 fascinating wild passion-flower, pure white, and enfolded in a mossy 
 calyx just like a white moss-rose. 
 
 Conspicuous among these wild plants are the osbekia, laden with 
 lilac blossom, and the tall stiff spikes of a pink lobelia, and of a pale 
 yellow mullen (the Aaron's rod of our gardens, only twice as tall). 
 
 You must not imagine, however, that gardening even at Nuwara 
 Eliya is all play. Were it only the ceaseless battle with divers insects, 
 the work would be no sinecure. A gentleman who was admiring the 
 glories of the gorgeous gladioli in the garden of the Grand Hotel in 
 November, observed several women busy collecting black grubs, and 
 was told that in the previous week they had collected on an average
 
 142 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 three thousand grubs daily in that one garden ! And that is only 
 one detail of trouble. 
 
 A week of perfect weather before Easter produced such a wealth 
 of blossom as made church decoration a real pleasure, especially 
 where there were so many willing hands to help. This year (1891) I 
 hear the decorations were lovelier than ever, as you may judge by a 
 few details. There were texts on backgrounds of moss or of scarlet ; 
 the font was decked with white arums, marguerites, daisies, and ferns ; 
 the chancel trellised with creepers, rnaiden-hair ferns, arum lilies, 
 and scarlet geranium. In the chancel-window was a cross of Black 
 Douglas geraniums, and the altar-rails were entwined with ferns and 
 bunches of cream-coloured roses and crimson poppies. The pulpit 
 and lectern were adorned with arum lilies, ferns, and crimson cacti, 
 the reading-desk with cream-coloured carnations, arums, daisies, and 
 ferns. ^ 
 
 So the flower-angels had their full share as ministering spirits at 
 the great festival : 
 
 O the beautiful flowers, the sweet fragrant flowers, 
 These dear loving smiles from our Father above ; 
 
 To earth they are given to teach us of Heaven : 
 They bloom round our pathway to whisper of love, 
 These beautiful smiles of Gol\ 
 
 The pretty little cruciform church and the peaceful churchyard lie 
 in a pleasant sheltered corner, surrounded by rhododendrons, daturas, 
 and other flowering shrubs, and overshadowed by one grand old tree 
 with a gnarled, twisted stem, such as one sometimes sees in miniature 
 on very rank heather. At a little distance it is hard to believe that 
 this is not a veritable stone-pine. I was told, however, that it is a 
 eugenia, of the myrtle family. Happily, in the clearing of the forest 
 on the lower hills a considerable number of these have been spared, 
 and, together with groups of tall dark trees resembling cypresses, 
 have all the effect of the non-existent pines and firs. 
 
 Of course, wherever Government makes its headquarters for the 
 season, there white men and women congregate ; and so during these 
 
 1 The thanksgiving services in June, at the Cathedral, Colombo, as the equivalent 
 of a ' Harvest Home,' were also pretty and characteristic, the church being adorned 
 with wreaths of the glossy green coffee and cinnamon, with a profusion of pine-apples, 
 shaddocks, brinjals, bunches of oranges, lemons, and limes, green and yellow cocoa 
 and areca nuts, graceful pepper, and lovely nutmegs, and, in short, all manner of 
 tropical ' fruits of the earth. '
 
 NUWARA ELIYA 143 
 
 spring months, until the end of May, each of the nest-h'ke homes 
 encircHng the plain is well-filled, and a most cheery social life is kept 
 up, picnics and races, games, balls, and dinner-parties enlivening 
 both day and night. This continues until the end of May, when, 
 the stormy south-west monsoon being almost due, the Cottage itself 
 — i.e. the Governor's house — is deserted, and his Excellency adjourns 
 to Kandy, there to celebrate the Queen's birthday. Then within a 
 very few days this sweet spot is forsaken of the gregarious multitude, 
 and those who do remain settle down to the peace and quietness of 
 their pleasant highland homes. 
 
 Now that Nuwara Eliya, in common with most of the principal 
 European stations in Ceylon, has started a golf-course, it has secured 
 an additional all-the-year-round attraction in the eyes of many. But 
 there certainly is no reason why it should ever be forsaken on the 
 mere score of climate, for although howling wind, drizzling rain, and 
 heavy white mists prevail in June and July, August has many warm, 
 bright, clear days, and then till the end of November the climate is 
 as variable as the same months would be in Britain ; but with one 
 singular advantage for Nuwara Eliya — namely, that, no matter what 
 storms sweep over it and the hills towards Colombo, or how dark 
 the clouds which rest on Hak-galla, there is sure to be a bright blue 
 sky beyond it, teUing of clear sunshine on the Uva hills and the 
 country towards Badulla, so that anyone who wearies of rain has 
 only to ride about four miles in that direction to find himself beneath 
 a cloudless sky with all the mists behind him. Of course these 
 green hills get their turn of rain in the other monsoon. 
 
 The great feature of ' the season ' is the Jymkana, when as many 
 of the planters as can possibly snatch a brief holiday from their 
 estates flock to Nuwara Eliya, and of course try how much fun can 
 possibly be crammed into the time. Nowhere have I ever met a 
 whole community so thoroughly genial and hearty, or in which the 
 affectation of blase-ness is so totally unknown. As for any women- 
 folk attempting to play the dowagers, the thing was impossible ; for 
 so many of these exiled Britons had ridden thirty or forty miles on 
 purpose for a dance, that they would dance with one another rather 
 than sit out, so, under such circumstances, feminine indolence would 
 have been downright selfishness. 
 
 Nothing short of an atmosphere so amazingly invigorating as that 
 of these mountains could enable any average mortal to get through 
 so much exertion without fatigue. Perhaps I cannot prove this
 
 144 ^^'^O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 better than by quoting a few passages from my diary, first remarking 
 that at that time there was only one carriage in Nuwara EHya, so that 
 ahiiost everyone walked to and from all evening entertainments, and 
 also that eight dances and divers other entertainments were crowded 
 into three weeks. The presence of the band of the 73rd High- 
 landers was the chief incentive to such an outburst of frolic. 
 
 Here, then, is one morning : ' Out sketching before daybreak, 
 returning home at noon. Afternoon standing about at games. 
 Dinner and dance till 2 a.m. Out sketching by 6 a.m.' 
 
 Another day ; ' Staying at Headquarters House — i.e. of the 
 General in command. At 6 a.m. the Governor's carriage came to 
 take me to breakfast at the Cottage. Rode with his Excellency, by 
 a somewhat steep jungle-path, to the top of " Pedro," the highest 
 mountain in Ceylon. Its real name is Pidura-tala-galla, which means 
 " the mat-weaving rock." It was so called on account of a sort of 
 rush which was abundant here and was used for making mats. 
 
 ' From the summit we literally overlooked the whole Isle, the sea 
 being clearly visible both to the east and west. Before us, as on a 
 map, lay outstretched the intricate mountain-ranges clothed with 
 dark-green forest,^ brighter green marking the coffee plantations, and 
 a still lighter tint the mountain meadows called patenas with silvery 
 lines and glittering mirrors indicating streams and pools. In the 
 wonderful stillness we heard the voices of many mountain torrents 
 rushing tumultuously down the rocky ravines and gullies. 
 
 ' On the summit we found wild strawberry plants and forget-me- 
 nots ; and as we walked leisurely down the mountain, I gathered 
 buttercups, yellow St. John's wort, small geraniums, real " blue-bells 
 of Scotland " (not blue hyacinths !) and a sort of ranunculus. 
 Scented purple violets are sometimes found, but I sought for them 
 in vain. 
 
 ' After breakfast drove back to Headquarters House, whence in the 
 afternoon we all walked a mile to the races and back again, standing 
 about all the afternoon. Walked to a dinner party at one house, 
 whence the whole party walked to a ball at another. Thence at 
 4 a.m. all walked home across the plain in the most lovely moonlight. 
 I was out again by 9 a.m. sketching till noon. 
 
 ' Up at 5 A.M. Rode to the top of Pedro, and sent the horses 
 back. Sketched as much as was possible of that vast panorama, with 
 
 1 Almost the whole of which has now vanished before the advance of the planter's 
 axe.
 
 NUWARA ELIYA 145 
 
 Adam's I'cak conspicuous above the many mountain-ranges, and a 
 somewhat desolate foreground of ghostly dead trees, scorched by 
 some accidental fire, but still standing, bleached by many a wintry 
 storm and summer sun, and bearded with long trails of grey moss 
 and lichens. But the view from a mountain top is not very sketch- 
 able, being rather suggestive of a petrified ocean, as if liquid waves 
 had been suddenly transformed to solid rock ridges, fixed and im- 
 movable. 
 
 ' Walked back, a distance of four miles, and found all the party 
 busy decorating the ball-room, in which I gave a helping hand. 
 Dancing till 4 a.m. Out sketching beside the river by 9 a.m.' 
 
 One lovely morning we started early — a very pleasant party — to 
 ride twelve miles through the loveliest jungle to Ragalla, where it had 
 been arranged that we should all sleep in a tiny bungalow built by a 
 planter who had just commenced clearing a coffee estate. Such a 
 scene of havoc ! The lovely jungle ruthlessly burnt down, and the 
 charred and blackened trunks of huge old trees lying on the ground, 
 their grand boughs all turned to charcoal, slowly feeding the wretched 
 little coffee shrubs which were planted all over the ground. 
 
 After luncheon the Government Agent invited me to come and 
 see a grand view of the Maturata Plains ; it was some way off, but 
 he didn't know how far. Being quite fresh, I was of course ready to 
 see as much as possible, so we started, riding the first four miles, till 
 the road became impassable for horses, so we had to walk the rest of 
 the way, which proved to be four miles more ! (In Britain in my 
 best days, a three-mile walk has always been my full day's work, so 
 you see what credit belongs to this glorious climate of Nuwara 
 Eliya !) 
 
 Happily my kind friend had had the forethought to send up a 
 chair on poles, and coolies to carry me ; so after thoroughly enjoying 
 the magnificent view, in all the grandeur of a most awesome thunder- 
 storm, I was carried down. Long before we got through the jungle 
 it was pitch-dark, and we had to halt while the coolies manufactured 
 chides — i.e. torches like small fagots of dried sticks, which they feed 
 with frequent applications of cocoa-nut oil. 
 
 In the morning we all started at 6 x.u., the rest of the party 
 having to return direct to Nuwara Eliya ; but I halted by myself for 
 some hours en route to secure a sketch of a lovely jungle scene. Of 
 course I was not literally alone, for here, as in India, every horse- 
 keeper is always bound to be in attendance on his own horse, and is 
 
 L
 
 146 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 supposed to keep up with the rider, whatever may be the pace, and 
 very hard running that involves, even when humane new-comers 
 make excuses for dawdh'ng, to give them a chance, especially after 
 an irresistible canter. 
 
 Whenever one leaves the beaten track one is of course liable to 
 find jungle paths in a very dubious condition. Of this we had good 
 experience one day, when a friend undertook to guide me to a very 
 fine sketching-point beyond the Elk Plains. So we started, as usual, 
 at 6 A.M., and rode round the back of beautiful Hak-galla and across 
 the patenas, which, having been recently burnt, were in all the loveli- 
 ness of the freshest young green, but fringed with scorched jungle. 
 
 We expected to reach our destination before 9 a.m., but to our 
 unmitigated disgust found that the jungle-path had never been over- 
 hauled for six years ! and the distance proved to be upwards of 
 twelve miles. We could not go beyond a slow walk the whole way, 
 and I had literally to dismount upwards of twenty times to let the 
 horse be led over impracticable bits of broken bank. 
 
 At I P.M. we had not reached the point where my companion had 
 purposed leaving me for the day, so there was nothing for it but to 
 rest awhile and then retrace our ground. That was indeed an ex- 
 hausting day, nine and a half hours in the saddle, only varied by the 
 fatigue of incessantly mounting and dismounting. To add to the 
 situation, a tremendous thunderstorm came on, which certainly was 
 very grand, but followed by such downpouring rain as was supremely 
 disagreeable ; for it was not nice returning to civilised life like 
 drowned rats to meet all the smart people taking their walk in the 
 beautifully clear evening. 
 
 (It really is extraordinary to see what trouble people do give 
 themselves, even in Paradise, to keep up with the changes of the 
 very latest fashions — all the newest Parisian millinery, dresses from 
 Worth, and kid gloves fresh by every mail ! Common-sense and 
 comfort plead alike in favour of no gloves and the simplest attire, in 
 a climate whose warm moisture promotes such rapid vegetation that 
 a very few days suffice to mildew gloves and silk dresses, and to coat 
 boots and broadcloth with fungus half an inch in length ! Clothes 
 of all sorts are ruined unless they are perpetually being aired 
 in the sun, and clothes left lying by are simply destroyed. Conse- 
 quently, for people living in remote parts of the country, a visit to 
 Kandy or Colombo involves grave considerations as to the adorning 
 of the outer man or woman !)
 
 NUIVARA ELIYA 147 
 
 Here, as in most hilly districts, there is a good deal of swampy 
 morass in the hollows, and one of the dangers to be avoided in 
 riding along vague tracks is that of getting bogged in soft peaty soil, 
 a most disagreeable experience which I narrowly escaped while 
 riding up Mount Kiklomani. \V^e came to a bit of dubious-looking 
 ground, and I fortunately insisted on getting off, for it proved to be 
 a most treacherous bog, in which a moment later the poor beast 
 was floundering, and was only extricated with much difficulty. I 
 was truly thankful that the owner himself was there in charge, for, 
 indeed, the anxious responsibility of riding a borrowed horse is 
 serious, and some of the difficult jungle-paths, and those along the 
 face of steep hillsides, did try my nerves to an unwarrantable extent, 
 and a small stumble often made me hotter than I would have cared 
 to confess. 
 
 Of pleasant picnics, large and small, there was no end. One was 
 beside a lovely still pool, fed by a rippling stream working its way 
 among moss grown boulders ; on the pool shone the snowy cups of 
 a multitude of floating lilies, deeply shaded by the overhanging 
 foliage — an ideal of sleepy loveliness. Blue and green dragon-flies, 
 and occasionally a scarlet one, hovered over the lilies or skimmed 
 across the pool, and butterflies of gorgeous hue assembled (holding 
 parliament, we said) in the cool damp of many a shady green nook. 
 
 The butterflies of Ceylon are so beautiful and so varied as to be 
 at all times a joy, whether seen singly, when one glorious creature 
 seems for a moment to have the garden to himself, or in companies 
 of radiant joyous little beings. One of the mysteries of the Isle is 
 the annual migration in November and December, and at intervals 
 right on to February, of countless myriads of butterflies in vast 
 flights ; whence they come and whither going, no one can guess. 
 
 The migration commences with the setting in of the north-east 
 monsoon, with its cool mornings and bright days ; and when the 
 stormy wind blows strongest, these delicate insects, impelled by some 
 inexplicable instinct, force their way against it, and during a couple 
 of months successive legions pass on like an ever-flowing stream. I 
 have collected a few notes of observations made on this subject in 
 different years. 
 
 Thus, in 1884, swarms of dark-coloured butterflies passed over 
 Kandy and Ratnapura on November 19. On the following day 
 these were succeeded by swarms of white and'yellow ones. 
 
 In 1887, Mr. Le Mesurier, writing from Nuwara Eliya, noted the 
 
 L 2
 
 148 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 first fliglit of the season on November 18. The flight lasted the 
 wliole day ; direction from due south-west to nortli. Wind from 
 south-west. Colour of butterflies, speckled dark brown. 
 
 The next flight he noticed was on November 21, when two kinds 
 of butterflies, white and sulphur, continued all day passing right over 
 the summit of Pedro from north to due south. The direction of 
 the wind was from the north-east. 
 
 On December 10 another observer stated that brown and white 
 butterflies had been in flight for some days, flying south. 
 
 In 1 888 the migration northward in the teeth of the wind was 
 observed at Colombo on November 18, the great flight of white and 
 yeUow butterflies being mingled with some of a darker colour. 
 
 In 1889, flights were observed in the mountain district of 
 Dimbula, about the middle of October, and at Colombo on 
 November 5, when dark-brown butterflies and yellowish-white ones 
 flew in separate columns at a rate of about ten miles an hour. 
 
 All the accounts (which might be multiplied by observations from 
 all parts of the island, north, south, east, and west, from Manaar to 
 Galle, and from Trincomalee to Negombo) speak only of brown, white, 
 and yellow insects ; hence I infer that the glorious butterflies which 
 most delighted us do not risk becoming food for fishes by any such 
 venturesome flights. There is one lovely creature with black velvety 
 wings spotted with crimson, and measuring about four inches from 
 tip to tip ; while another, likewise robed in black velvet, has brilliant 
 yellow spots on the under-wing ; and yet another of the sombre sort 
 has black velvet upper-wings with lovely blue under-wings. Others 
 are of a lustrous pale-blue, or a rich metallic purple or green, and 
 some are pure white. The most delicate of all has semi-transparent 
 wings, and is so exquisitely refined that it is generally known as the 
 sylph. 
 
 Then at sunset these radiant creatures disappear, and handsome 
 hawk-moths and humming-bird moths dart to and fro in the twilight, 
 to be succeeded an hour later by various night-moths, whose beauty 
 is lost to us in the darkness, their presence only revealed by a rushing 
 flight, too often in the direction of lamps and candles. Many of the 
 moth and butterfly caterpillars are exceedingly handsome and brightly 
 coloured. All these, however, are far more abundant in the low 
 country than in this cooler region. 
 
 Many fascinating birds also did their part in giving life and colour 
 to the beautiful scene, a specially lovely family being the jays with
 
 NUWARA ELIYA 149 
 
 their brilliantly blue body and tail, and goldcn-sicnna head and wings. 
 They go about in flocks of six or eight, and are very shy of human 
 beings, so they are warily silent while on the ground feeding on 
 beetles, but make up for this by harsh croaking cries when on the 
 tree-tops. 
 
 One of the favourite amusements at Nuwara Eliya was 
 * gemming '—i.e. devoting a day to washing gravel in various places 
 where it was likely that moonstones and garnets might be found. It 
 was scarcely to be expected that this playing at work would prove 
 very successful, but amateur seekers are easily pleased, and they 
 invariably brought home a certain number of promising crystals, some 
 of which it was hoped might turn out treasures ; in fact, several 
 unusually fine moonstones were found in the gravelly bed of some of 
 the streams. These when polished certainly are lovely stones, of" a 
 lustrous pearly white, really suggestive of moonlight, and when set in 
 silver they make charming ornaments. But, in common with garnets 
 and amethysts, they are little valued, simply because they are 
 abundant. 
 
 We had a very pleasant picnic, enlivened by the 73rd band playing 
 Scotch music, on some grassy downs known to the British as the 
 Bully-hilly Patenas, which I need scarcely say is not their real name, 
 but one of those senseless approximations to sound in which the 
 Anglo-Saxon delights, and by which the really descriptive native 
 names are so ruthlessly superseded. For instance, what can be more 
 detestable than ' Mutton Button ' as the name for a beautiful hillside 
 visible from Kandy? Yet this is the foreigner's corruption of 
 Mattena Patena, 'the shining meadow.' 
 
 And many of the native names afford a clue to ancient legends or 
 topographical changes : thus, Yakka-galla is ' the demon's rock ' ; 
 Dee-wuran-gaha, ' the tree of the oath,' marks the spot when once 
 stood a very sacred bo-tree ; Nuga-talawa is 'the banyan-tree plain' ; 
 Bogaha-watte tells of another bo-tree felled by ruthless planters ; 
 Kehel-watte suggests the wild plantains of olden days. At Malegawa- 
 tenne, ' the palace-flat,' tradition affirms that Ravanna the demon 
 once had a palace ; now it is a rice-field through which flows a river. 
 Nanda-nodiyana, ' the pleasure-ground,' is the name of a moun- 
 tainous district to the east of Nuwara Eliya, in which the aforesaid 
 demon (or deified hero) is supposed to have taken delight. The 
 Malwatte-oya is the river of the Garden of Flowers ; the Kalu-ganga 
 is the Black River. The Maha-velli-ganga is the Great Sandy River ;
 
 ISO TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 the Dik-oya is the Long River. Hak-galla is said to be aeontraction 
 of Yakkada-galla, and to mean ' the iron rock.' Certainly the 
 amount of iron in the soil ol tlie district is remarkable, and sensibly 
 affects vegetation, being excellent for tea but destructive to cinchona ; 
 but I think llak-galla is much more likely to be another 'demon's 
 rock.' 
 
 Mandara-nuwara, ' the city of the shadow,' is the very poetic 
 name of a village in a gloomy valley at the base of Pidura-tala-galla. 
 (I have already mentioned that the name of this mountain describes 
 the rushes there gathered for weaving mats.) Monara-galla describes 
 the Rock of the Peacock._ Bintenne, so frequently referred to in 
 sporting annals, is difficult to locate till we realise that the name 
 simply describes sloping wooded foot-hills, answering to the Terai of 
 India. What a new interest attaches to the I^axapana estate in 
 Maskeliya when we learn that it derives its name from Laxapana-galla, 
 ' the mountain of the hundred thousand lamps,' so called because at 
 its base bands of pilgrims to Adam's Peak congregate and at midnight 
 light their lamps, preparatory to ascending the holy mount, so as to 
 reach its summit before the rising of the sun ! But I need not mul- 
 tiply examples to endorse my protest against the useless vulgarising 
 of descriptive names. 
 
 Of course half the charm of every expedition lay in hunting for 
 new wild-flowers, and great was the pleasure of discovering the ' gold ' 
 and ' silver ' backed ferns of our greenhouses, growing wild in profu- 
 sion. Calceolarias and red and white balsams had also the interest 
 of being old friends, but one of my chief jungle treasures was alto- 
 gether new to me, a wax-like lilac-pink creeper, which clings like a 
 veil to the very top of many a tall forest-tree, but is so capricious in 
 its growth that, though several planters told me they had tried to 
 induce it to live when transplanted to their gardens, none had 
 succeeded in doing so. Each blossom is the size of a florin and has 
 four petals. I was told its name was Kandrikia Walkerii. 
 
 A less ambitious beauty is the water-balsam, which grows in many 
 of the streams ; the Singhalese call it diya nilla, and say that its 
 crushed leaves are as efficacious as a mustard-poultice, and very bene- 
 ficial in cases of neuralgia and lumbago. Owners of white skin, how- 
 ever, are warned that these easily prepared blisters leave a black stain 
 which is not ornamental, but may be lessened or prevented by placing 
 a piece of linen next the skin. 
 
 Much to my regret, I did not see these high jungles in their fullest
 
 NUIVARA ELIVA 151 
 
 glory, for that only occurs once in seven years, when a whole clan of 
 flowering shrubs (of the Strobilanthes family), called by the Singhalese 
 nillo, burst forth into most fragrant blossom. Some of these are 
 delicate dwarf plants, others have a stem as thick as a man's arm, and 
 grow to a height of about twenty feet ; all are jointed canes growing in 
 single stalks, and bear their honeyed blossoms in clusters round the 
 joints. The different varieties bear white, blue, red, and purple 
 flowers, while some are parti-coloured, crimson and white. To add 
 to the charm of the forests at this season, there is often an under- 
 growth of gorgeous scarlet and yellow blossoms, gleaming like fire 
 among the jointed roots of the nillo. 
 
 These slim and perfectly upright stems form a dense underwood 
 in many of the mountain forests, and this, in the case of the species 
 which grows to about twenty feet in height, is so thick as to be almost 
 impenetrable. Elephants force their way through it, leaving long 
 lanes which often prove very convenient to puny human beings. Its 
 only foliage is on the extreme summit, where a few small branches 
 bear the leaves, and every seventh year, in the early spring, produce 
 rich clusters of white and purple blossom, so fragrant as to perfume 
 the whole atmosphere with a scent of honey, attracting large swarms 
 of bees, which appear as if by magic in jungles where, perhaps, scarcely 
 one has been in the previous six years. 
 
 To save themselves time and trouble, the bees, of which there are 
 four different sorts in Ceylon, construct their nests in hollow trees or 
 holes in the rock. One suspends a small nest no bigger than an 
 orange from the boughs of a tree, offering a tempting prize both to 
 bears and men. The latter prepare torches of green leaves, and with 
 their heavy smoke stupefy these poor workers, whose well-filled 
 honeycombs they can then abstract, carrying them to market in 
 hollow gourds slung on ropes. The combs differ in size and in 
 quality according to the manufacturer — for the four varieties of 
 honey-bees vary from one kind the size of a hornet, to another 
 smaller than our house-fly. 
 
 One of these. Apis dorsata (which is also found in Java), is said 
 to be the largest and longest-tongued of all bees, and the only one 
 able to extract the honey from certain flowers in which it lies deeply 
 seated, just as in Britain only the bumble-bee can reach the honey 
 concealed in the long tubes of the red-clover blossom. 
 
 Speaking of hornets, those of Ceylon are very large, and have 
 reddish-brown wings, and a most ferocious sting. They make thern-
 
 152 TJJ'O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 selves useful by eating cockroaches, but are dreaded by the liglilly 
 draped natives, whom they sometimes attack savagely. I am told 
 that when natives arc attacked by wild bees, if there are any castor- 
 oil bushes in the neighbourhood, they run to take shelter in them, as 
 the discriminating bees avoid those handsome shrubs. 
 
 The marvel is that they are not attacked more frequently, as a 
 common way of taking honey is simply to blow into the nest, when 
 the astonished bees fly out, and the robber quietly appropriates the 
 honey. Of the abundance of honey thus obtained one may form 
 some idea from a fact mentioned by Sir Samuel Baker — namely, that 
 having given a native permission to hunt for honey in his forest on 
 condition of bringing him the wax, the hunter in a very few weeks 
 brought seventy-two pounds of pure white wax made up in large balls. 
 Sir Samuel assumed that the amount really taken was probably at 
 least double this. 
 
 When the bees have had their day among the nillo blossoms, then 
 comes the turn of flocks of pigeons, squirrels, rats, and other creatures, 
 who congregate to celebrate their septennial festival of nillo nuts, 
 which are as pleasant to the taste as was the delicious fragrance of 
 the blossom to the sense of smell. 
 
 The nut festival being over, the whole of the nillo dies, leaving 
 only a standing array of tall leafless poles. Ere long these decay and 
 fall to the ground, and the forest then presents the curious appearance 
 of having no underwood, save confused piles of dead sticks. Soon, 
 however, a fresh crop of young nillo springs up, in succulent verdure, 
 very attractive to elk and other deer, who do their best to thin the 
 too luxuriant growth. Enough, however, escapes them to secure a 
 renewed promise of perfumed forests, when six more years shall have 
 rolled away. 
 
 Several of the larger kinds of bamboo share this peculiarity of 
 only flowering periodically and gregariously ; the smaller bamboos 
 flower annually, but the very graceful kind ' which adorns the swamps 
 on the high patenas all seem to attain maturity simultaneously, and 
 then 'the grace of the fashion of it perisheth,' and for a while the 
 swamps are strewn only with prostrate withered stems, till a new 
 generation arise and start fair on their little span of life. 
 
 About five miles to the east of Nuwara Eliya rises the majestic 
 mountain of Hak-galla — a very conspicuous feature as seen from the 
 settlement, towering beyond Lake Gregory, and especially fine as seen 
 
 1 ^rundinaria dcnsifolia.
 
 NUWARA ELIYA 15,3 
 
 from Baker's farm looking down on the intervening grassy valley. It 
 is a grand massive pile about 7,000 feet in height, all forest-clad, with 
 deeply indented saddle, the seaward face descending to the vast plains 
 of Uva in almost precipitous crags. 
 
 Nestling at the base of one of these crags, which towers above it 
 in a sheer precipice of 1,600 feet, lie the Government Botanical 
 Gardens, 5,400 feet above the sea- level. They arc not only beautiful 
 for situation, but very beautiful in themselves, and commanding a 
 magnificent view of the hills and valleys of Uva. The gardens lie 
 on a steep slope facing north-east, sheltered by the grisat crag from 
 tempestuous monsoon blasts, and always subject to ample rainfall. 
 Like the mists which watered Eden, so here mists roll up from the 
 low country dreamy and still, and float spirit-like, enfolding each 
 separate tree and shrub in a cool filmy veil. 
 
 Here experiments are made as to the possibility of acclimatising 
 plants from tropical mountains and from the plains of temperate 
 lands — America, Europe, and Australia — so you come on all manner of 
 surprises. There are flourishing young pine-trees from the Hima- 
 layas, cypresses and cedars (cryptomerias) from Japan, araucarias and 
 plane-trees from Australia, and all manner of European fruit-trees, 
 peaches and plums, apple and pear trees. As to Australian gum- 
 trees, which were grown here in the first instance, they have fairly 
 taken possession of the land, and are now grown for fuel on estates 
 where all the natural forests have been wholly swept away. 
 
 Here I saw fine experimental plantations of cinchona (quinine), 
 which soon afterwards came so gallantly to the front, when King 
 Coffee had come to utter grief. But the reign of cinchona proved 
 all too brief, its very triumph proved its undoing, and the market was 
 so effectually glutted that its price would not pay for its cultivation. 
 Growing among it were masses of wild fuchsia — the sort with a long 
 scarlet tube. And in every direction there were flowers, flowers, 
 flowers — roses, irises, lilies, and a multitude of others, with here and 
 there open spaces of green turf and ferns. 
 
 Right above this towered the majestic crag, and in a cleft of the 
 rock something is pointed out which is said to be the skull of an 
 inquisitive elephant, who, not satisfied with climbing to the top of the 
 mountain forest, must needs look over the precipice, and lost his 
 balance. Certainly elephants seem to take an unaccountable pleasure 
 in climbing mountains which one would imagine to be inaccessible 
 to them. Both Major Skinner in 1840 and Hoffmeister in 1844
 
 154 TIVO JIAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 record having found the unmistakable proofs of elephants having 
 climbed almost to the very summit of Adam's Peak, up and down 
 those steep paths which human beings find so difficult ; and Major 
 Forbes-Leslie says that he has known three instances, in the Matele 
 district alone, of elephants being killed by falling down precipices. 
 
 Sir Samuel Baker used frequently to come on the tracks of 
 elephants 'on the precipitous sides of jungle-covered mountains near 
 Nuwara Eliya, where the ground is so steep that a man is forced to 
 cling to the underwood for support,' and where the jungle was so dense 
 that neither man nor elephant could see a yard before them. He 
 observed that their immense weight resting on such large feet, with 
 their edging of sharp horny toes, fairly cuts steps on the almost 
 precipitous hillsides ; and moreover, whether ascending or descend- 
 ing, the wise beast invariably moved by zigzags, and thus lessened the 
 abruptness of the incline. 
 
 CHAPTER Vni 
 
 ELEPHANTS 
 
 God's Acre — Major Rogers' grave — Elephants — Export of elephants — Leopards — 
 Sambur deer or elk — Red deer — Moose deer — Spotted deer. 
 
 There is one spot at Nuwara Eliya which to me has a very 
 pathetic interest— namely, the neglected old burial-ground where 
 sleep so many of the early pioneers. Brackens and other ferns, tall 
 spikes of lobelia, and trails of bramble, veil many a nameless grave 
 and long-neglected monument, overshadowed by kindly trees. 
 
 It is a sweet sunny spot, and I came on it by chance while seeking 
 for the best point from which to sketch the Governor's cottage, with 
 the grand blue cone of Kiklomani as a background, and to the right 
 the dark wooded range at the base of Pidura-tala-galla. 
 
 The monuments are in the soHd brick-and-mortar and stone style, 
 which certainly lack beauty till the softening touch of time has clothed 
 them with mosses and lichens. But one ' has a very peculiar interest, 
 having been riven asunder by lightning, which, strange to say, was 
 
 1 The monuments next to this bear the names of Ebenezer Gordon Munro, Sir 
 William Rough, Colonel Peddie, and Edward Septimus Hodges of Dorchester.
 
 ELEPHANTS 155 
 
 also the cause of the death of him whose body rests here — namely, 
 Major Rogers of the Ceylon Rifles, of whom the stone records that 
 he was 'Stricken to death in the Happootalle Pass on the 7th of June, 
 1845, aged forty-one years.' He was long commandant of the little 
 fort at BaduUa, in the heart of the country, which in those days was 
 so overrun by all manner of destructive wild animals that the sports- 
 man who could best thin their ranks, and especially those of the 
 crop-devouring and all-destroying herds of wild elephants, was the 
 truest benefactor of mankind — a fact which it is essential to bear 
 in mind in view of the amazing number of about 1,600 elephants 
 which fell to Major Rogers' own rifle. He kept count of each up to 
 1,300, and after that gave up reckoning, but the extra 300 is con- 
 sidered well within the mark. Up to about 1840 it was by no means 
 uncommon for a man to have killed a hundred elephants to his own 
 gun. 
 
 In these days when sportsmen have to pay ten rupees — equal to 
 about \<^s. — for a special licence for each separate elephant they 
 shoot, those who cannot realise the totally changed conditions of 
 these forest districts in the last fifty years are very apt to talk about 
 'wholesale massacre ' and 'useless cruelty.' If those who blame the 
 pioneers so readily could have spent a few years with my brother at 
 Batticaloa, and seen something of the ever-recurring heart-breaking 
 devastation of his cocoa-nut plantations by the elephant legions, they 
 might understand why it was that in those days Government offered 
 a reward of lojr. for the destruction of each of the great hungry 
 creatures, whose carcasses helped to manure the crops they sought 
 to devour. 
 
 Of course it is pitiful to think of the many poor beasts which 
 merely serve as targets for unskilful shots, and are left to die in slow 
 torture in Eastern forests or British coverts, but certainly in that 
 respect Major Rogers was peculiarly happy, for his aim was so 
 unerring that comparatively few creatures which received his first 
 bullet survived to suffer long. 
 
 Elephant-shooting in Ceylon is, however, a very different matter 
 from what it is in Africa — the Asiatic elephant being so much smaller, 
 and so rarely possessed of tasks. Out of the legion slain by Major 
 Rogers only about sixty were tuskers, and of these, few had ivory 
 equal to average African tusks — the large majority being only 
 provided with small tushes like those of the females, rarely exceeding 
 six inches in length, and projecting with downward curve. These
 
 156 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 arc frequently broken or worn down, but are still useful to the animal 
 in barking trees or otherwise amusing itself. 
 
 In India, as in Ceylon, the female elephant never has tusks, but 
 a much larger proportion of males in the forests of the mainland 
 are thus endowed. In Africa both male and female have good ivory, 
 a tuskless elephant being comjxnratively rare. My brother Roualeyn, 
 when in South Africa, secured one tusk lo feet 8 inches in length, 
 and which weighed 173 lb. In India a tusk five feet in length and 
 weighing 36 lb. is considered exceptionally fine, though there is a 
 tradition of a tusk weighing 90 lb., and eight feet in length. 
 
 The Asiatic elephant differs in many respects from its great 
 African kinsman. The latter has a projecting forehead and high 
 skull ; its enormous ears actually meet over the shoulders : whereas 
 the forehead of the Indian elephant is actually sunken, and its skull 
 is so depressed on the summit that it forms two distinct humps. 
 The ears are very much smaller than those of the African, and less 
 useful as fly-flaps. But the animal is altogether smaller, and its legs 
 are shorter in proportion to its size. 
 
 A singular difference between the elephant of Ceylon and that of 
 the mainland is that the former (like that of Sumatra), though dis- 
 tinctly smaller than the Indian elephant, is nevertheless provided with 
 an extra pair of ribs and dorsal vertebrae, the Indian having nineteen 
 of each and the Ceylon elephant having twenty. 
 
 With regard to height, it is somewhat disillusioning to ascertain 
 how much smaller elephants in general are than they are represented 
 in most picture-books. Colonel Forbes- Leslie says that during 
 eleven years, during which he had charge of an establishment in 
 Ceylon for the capture of elephants, he found that out of several 
 hundred, only three exceeded nine feet in height. 
 
 Even in India, Mr. Sanderson, a very great authority, states that 
 out of hundreds of elephants he has measured, the largest has never 
 exceeded 10 feet 7^ inches. He says he has often heard of enormous 
 elephants, but has invariably found that, when subjected to the 
 measuring-tape, they (with the single exception above noticed) never 
 exceeded ten feet in height. He inserted a request for information on 
 the subject in Indian newspapers, and off'ered an order on any gun- 
 maker for the best double-barrelled rifle, to any one who could produce 
 evidence of an elephant even eleven feet high. Accounts of giants 
 poured in, but none stood the test of inquiry. 
 
 The African elephant slightly exceeds this average. A new-born
 
 ELEPHANTS 157 
 
 baby elephant stands about three feet in height. They arc dark- 
 brown hairy creatures, l:)ut they soon rub off their hair, and become 
 lighter in colour. 
 
 There are records of elephantine ' Changs ' — giants which are said 
 to have attained to a height of twenty feet. The inaccuracy of 
 over-estimation may, however, account for these figures as well as for 
 more recent errors. But in the museum at St. Petersburg there is a 
 skeleton, sixteen and a half feet high, of an elephant sent to the Czar 
 Peter by the King of Persia. 
 
 Fossil remains also have been found at Jubbulpore of elephants 
 which must have measured fully fifteen feet to the shoulder. 
 
 In our own Oxford Museum are the vertebrae and thigh-bone 
 of one which must have stood at least sixteen feet. It was found at 
 Abingdon, together with bones of the rhinoceros and various species 
 of deer. At Hoxton, too, a skull was dug up with tusks of enormous 
 length, and most of the large teeth perfect. Similar fossil remains of 
 elephantine skeletons and teeth have been dug up in the very streets 
 of London, Oxford, and various other parts of England. 
 
 Of the multitude of elephants which overran Ceylon even in the 
 middle of this century, some idea may be formed from the fact, 
 referred to by Sir Samuel Baker, of three first-rate shots having in 
 three days bagged 104 elephants. 
 
 The really distressing part of such slaughter is the waste of so 
 much good meat, as it never seems to occur to the hungriest 
 Singhalese to eat elephant steak or stew. Of course all good 
 Buddhists are by way of being vegetarians, but the rule on that 
 point is so elastic, that it is reduced to refraining from killing or 
 giving the order of death for any animal. If other people choose to 
 incur the sin of taking life, the best Buddhist may without sin eat of 
 the meat provided,^ and any sort of venison (or any meat which, when 
 smoked and dried, can be passed off as venison) is most acceptable, 
 but not elephant. (Buddha himself is said to have eaten freely of 
 the flesh of wild pig.) 
 
 In Africa, on the other hand, the death of an elephant means a 
 feast for hungry tribes, and every morsel of the carcass is consumed. 
 
 1 Buddhism is a nice school for casuists. The Buddhist, who would on no account 
 kill cockroaches, turns in his chickens to eat them. Fishers will not kill fishes, but 
 lay them on the shore to die ; they say they are not to blame for the fishes' peculiari- 
 ties of breathing. So with regard to serpents, they will not kill them, but cradle them 
 in baskets or spalhes of palm-blossom and float them down the river, hoping that they 
 may be drowned.
 
 158 TJVO IIArPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 There, however, such is the havoc by ivory hunters, that the country 
 south of the Zambesi is already well-nigh cleared, and no wonder, 
 when we consider that the twenty-five tons of ivory annually re- 
 quired by one English firm (Messrs. Rodgers cS; Sons, of Sheffield) 
 involves the death of eight hundred tusk elephants ! How rarely 
 people investing in nice ivory-handled knives think of such ante- 
 cedents ! 
 
 Wonderful to relate, in all his prolonged warfare with the lords 
 of the forest, Major Rogers only came to grief once ; that was on 
 December 29, 1841, when exploring a new forest track near Ham- 
 bantota. He had done a good deal of execution all the morning, 
 and was following a herd of elephants, and had fired twice at one 
 of them, when it turned, and in a moment caught him in its 
 trunk and flourished him about as if he had been an infant. It 
 carried him towards a stream, but dropped him on the sloping 
 ground, and again and again attempted to crush him with its great 
 head, while emitting the most awful roars. 
 
 Happily the sloping ground frustrated its efforts, and each time 
 Major Rogers slipped from under it, till both reached the bed of the 
 stream. Then the elephant tried to lift him by his clothes, which 
 happily were very old, and gave way in every direction, so that he 
 was nearly stripped. Then the great creature played ball with him, 
 kicking him from its fore to its hind legs, and back again. Just 
 then the elephant suddenly jerked up its head and got entangled in 
 some jungle ropes (vines), which evidently alarmed it, awakening 
 suspicions of a trap. Major Rogers lay perfectly still, feigning death, 
 and when the elephant got disengaged from the vines it moved off 
 as if satisfied, avoiding treading on its victim, but flourishing his torn 
 garments, and trumpeting hideously. 
 
 The result of this encounter was that the left shoulder was dis- 
 located, the left arm broken in two places and otherwise severely 
 contused, two serious hurts on the right side, and a general all- 
 overish consciousness of having been severely battered. He was 
 fifty miles from home, with an intervening mountain 4,000 feet high to 
 be crossed. However, his men rallied round him, and carried him 
 safely back to BaduUa, where he continued his work as a most 
 efficient assistant Government Agent till the fatal day when, as he 
 was crossing the Haputale Pass, a most appalling thunderstorm came 
 on, and he took refuge in a rest-house which then stood on the edge
 
 ELEPHANTS 159 
 
 of the forest. (The forest is now the Sherwood estate, and the rest- 
 house was accidentally burnt.) 
 
 There he found friends who were also detained by the heavy 
 downpour of rain, and Major Rogers stepped on to the verandah to 
 see if there were any symptom of the storm passing away. As he 
 turned to re-enter the house, a blinding flash of lightning was 
 followed by a deafening thunder-crash — the central pole of the 
 triumphal arch (patidal) before the house was riven, the horses and 
 coolies in the back verandah and out-houses were all struck down, 
 not seriously injured however, but poor Rogers fell forward with his 
 face to the door, dead. It was evident that the electric fluid had 
 been attracted by his brass military spurs, for one heel was dis- 
 coloured. ' 
 
 Instead of carrying him back to lay him at Badulla, where he 
 had so long ruled wisely and well, his body was carried to Nuwara 
 Eliya, there to be laid in the peaceful God's Acre, just 4,000 feet 
 nearer heaven than at Badulla, but there by a most "strange coin- 
 cidence his tomb was no sooner finished than it likewise was 
 stricken by ' fire from heaven ' ; and we can scarcely wonder that a 
 people who (theoretically) hold all life sacred (though they had never 
 hesitated to petition Major Rogers to be their benefactor by slaying 
 as many as possible of the elephants which devastated their fields 
 and gardens) believed that these fiery flashes were in very deed 
 the ministers of heaven's righteous retribution on one who had dealt 
 such destruction to the brute creation. 
 
 Yet so truly did they appreciate his justice and ability, and so 
 greatly was he personally loved that, at the suggestion of a Kandyan 
 Buddhist chief, these very people subscribed for and erected to his 
 memory a pretty little Christian church in the town of Badulla : for 
 they said, ' We Buddhists build a Vihara to the memory of an 
 eminent Buddhist, therefore it is fitting that Major Rogers, a 
 
 1 In a country so subject to the awful majesty of tropical thunderstorms, these are 
 responsible for many casualties. In June 1884 a thunderbolt fell right upon a drinking 
 and gambling den, concealed in the heart of the jungle at Kanduboda. Of the ten 
 men present one was killed, three were on the following day reported to be dying, and 
 all the others more or less injured. A very ghastly case occuried in May 1891. Three 
 men had gone out fishing in a canoe, when a storm set in and the canoe was stricken 
 by lightning. All three lost consciousness ; and w'hen at length one man revived, he 
 found one of his companions dead, and the other unconscious and badly singed. 
 VN'ith great difficulty he contrived to bring the canoe back to Colombo with its sad 
 freight
 
 i6o TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Christian, should have his memory perpetuated by a church of his 
 faith.' 
 
 So Badulla owes her church to this ' the most active official, the 
 most prominent planting pioneer, and the most famous sportsman 
 Ceylon ever saw.' Of him Major Skinner wrote that ' At the time of 
 his death he was performing, to the entire satisfaction of the Govern- 
 ment and the public, the offices of Government Agent for the district 
 of Uva, District Judge, Commandant of the district, and Assistant in 
 charge of the roads of the province— duties which, after his death, 
 required four men to perform, with far less efliciency, promptitude, 
 and punctuality than when they w^ere administered by him alone.' 
 
 Speaking of elephants. Major Skinner remarked that the largest 
 wild elephants captured were invariably the most docile, but also 
 most sensitive. He also noted that at kraals the Singhalese in- 
 variably selected the smallest elephants to decoy the big ones, who 
 never showed any violence or ill-will to these little traitors. The finest 
 he ever saw fed from his hand the very evening he was captured, 
 and proved most docile to his training till the first day he was put in 
 harness to draw a waggon. This indignity was more than the great 
 lord of the forest could endure. He dropped in the shafts, and died 
 then and there of a broken heart. So said the natives, and so Major 
 Skinner firmly believed, having seen the selfsame thing occur in 
 several other cases. 
 
 But those which are captured young are truly valuable allies, 
 combining as they do such marked intelligence with mighty strength. 
 For dragging heavy machinery or clearing new ground they are 
 invaluable — vide Sir Samuel Baker's account of his elephants at work 
 on his farm at Nuwara Eliya. He had brought out a ' cultivator ' large 
 enough to anchor twenty of the small native bullocks ; but a splendid 
 elephant worked it as though it had been a toy, cutting through the 
 coarse roots of rank turf as a knife peels an apple. 
 
 Then a long wooden plough drawn by eight bullocks did its 
 work, and finally, when the seed was sown, the original elephant re- 
 appeared on the scene, simultaneously dragging a pair of heavy 
 harrows, attached to which and following behind were a pair of light 
 harrows, and after these came a roller. Thus were time and labour 
 economised. 
 
 When not required for farm work, this useful creature was em- 
 ployed in building a dam across a stream. The newly felled forest 
 was distant only about fifty yards, and the rough stems of trees
 
 ELEPHANTS i6i 
 
 furnished suitable logs about fifteen feet long and eighteen inches 
 in diameter. Under the direction of her driver, she lifted these one 
 at a time /;/ her /iiou/k, after testing the point at which she secured 
 an exact balance, and then, steadying it with her trunk, she carried 
 each to the stream, and laid them in exactly parallel rows. The 
 larger logs she rolled gently over with her head and foot, guiding 
 each with her trunk till she had arranged it exactly to her own satis- 
 faction and that of her driver. 
 
 Of course, however sagacious the creature may be, such practical 
 usefulness as this is only attained by a long course of most patient 
 training ; but it is well worth the trouble of teaching an animal which 
 lives about a hundred years. The average term of life is eighty 
 years, but there have been authentic cases of elephants known to 
 have worked in the Indian Commissariat stables for a hundred and 
 fifty years.' 
 
 Most of the tame elephants in Ceylon are employed in connection 
 .with felling jungle, dragging timber, and making roads. They are 
 also valuable assistant masons, and I have often watched with the 
 greatest interest the tame elephants' share in building stone bridges, 
 and the wonderful sagacity and skill with which they contrive to 
 place very heavy stones, and then with their heads shove them into 
 exact position. When one sees an elephant's skull with its massive 
 frontal, about eight inches thick of bone and muscles, one can 
 understand something of the secret of the enormous force he can 
 exert. The well-protected brain of this sagacious beast is singularly 
 small, ohly occupying about one-eighth of the skull, and it needs an 
 expert marksman to hit it with fatal precision. 
 
 Gorgeous as is a procession of richly caparisoned elephants, it 
 must be allowed that the fine feathers go a long way, for nothing 
 can be more grotesquely ugly than the huge ungainly creature, with 
 his grey leathery skin hanging loose in wrinkled folds as he stands 
 ceaselessly fidgeting, swaying his great body from side to side, 
 shaking his head, flapping his great ears to keep off the flies, 
 
 1 The elephantine development is altogether leisurely. The female does not attain 
 maturity for fifteen years, so as the mother carries her calf twenty-two months, she is 
 probably about seventeen years old when the first calf is born. She has only one at 
 a birth, and suckles it for two years. (She has only two teats, which are situated 
 between the fore-legs. The baby sucks with its mouth, not with the trunk.) 
 
 The male does not attain maturity till it is about twenty years of age, and when in 
 captivity is not full grown till about twenty-five. In freedom it goes on growing till 
 it is about thirty years old, and continues in its prime till it is about sixty. 
 
 At
 
 i62 TJJV HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 swinging his legs and tail, or twisting his snake-like proboscis 
 (sensitive as the antennae of an insect). Therewith he lightly passes 
 over a fruit-tree, seeking for ripe fruit, and having found one he 
 gathers it with the tip of his trunk as neatly as a girl could lift a 
 cherry with her lips, and then the great trunk curls up and carefully de- 
 posits the dainty in its hideous red mouth. It drinks in the same way. 
 You almost wonder that so large a creature can condescend to 
 toy with small fruit, but then you should see him at work in real 
 earnest at dinner-time. Indeed it can be no trifle to satisfy the 
 appetite of a stableful of these huge herbivorous creatures, each of 
 which daily consumes, if he can get it, about 80 lb. weight of green 
 fodder and 18 lb. of grain. The females are expected to be satisfied 
 with less, as are also the Government elephants, whose rations, I am 
 told, are limited to about 50 lb. weight, so that the poor beasts can 
 never know the satisfaction of repletion (like that hungry street- Arab 
 who was asked if he had ever known what it was to eat till he was 
 satisfied, and whose face lighted up at the pleasant memory as he 
 answered, ' Yes, once ! ') 
 
 Even on this reduced scale, an elephant's ' daily bread ' costs 
 about five shillings.' First, each gets a pile of enormous chupatties^ 
 or, as we should call them in Scotland, bannocks — coarse cakes about 
 a foot in diameter ; "then a heap of green meat and grain of some 
 sort, and if sugar-cane is available, a great bundle of sugar-cane, 
 otherwise balls of native sugar and ghee (rancid butter), for they love 
 all sweatmeats, and will take the smallest bonbon or fruit from one's 
 hand, as gently as a child. 
 
 The patient politeness and obedience of a group of educated 
 elephants is most remarkable — however hungry, never touching the 
 most tempting food till permission has been given, or till their turn 
 comes, when each uplifts its mighty trunk, while its attendant places 
 a huge ball of rice in its open mouth. Sometimes, at the bidding of 
 the mahout, an elephant will abstain from swallowing any specially 
 dainty morsel, hiding it in the corner of its mouth till afterwards, 
 when it will give up the treasure and go shares ! 
 
 The restlessness of the trunk is a very remarkable characteristic. 
 I have often thought that some intelligent elephant must have 
 
 ' I am told that the daily rations of each elephant in the Zoological Gardens in 
 London consists of lo lb. of sea-biscuit, 42 lb. of Swedish turnips, a tmss and a half 
 of hay, and a mash composed of i bushel of chaff, i bushel of bran, and 3 lb. of 
 rice.
 
 ELEPHANTS 163 
 
 instructed his fellows in the secret of perpetual motion, for it is 
 incessant, and the concentrated essence of unrest lies in the trunk, 
 which is never still for a moment. 
 
 If it is amusing to watch the great creatures feed, it is also 
 interesting to watch their daily toilet as they stand in the water, while 
 their keepers scrub them with natural scouring brushes —i.e. half of 
 the thick fibrous husk which enfolds the cocoa-nut. Occasionally 
 a rough stone is substituted, and acts as sandpaper. Every elephant 
 answers to its own name. ' The Pearl,' ' The Rosebud,' ' The 
 Ethereal Fairy,' are among the playful titles to which these ponderous 
 creatures obediently respond. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, like most other big creatures these 
 grandly powerful animals are really very delicate, and require good 
 care, their feet being very liable to sores and their skin to abrasion. 
 Their eyes, too, are subject to inflammation ; and long journeys in 
 the sun are distasteful to a creature that loves to stand in the cool 
 shade waving branches in his trunk to keep off the flies, and fanning 
 himself as assiduously as any Spanish beauty. When in good health 
 an elephant can travel about forty miles in a day, at a slow, steady 
 pace. But if over-driven and hurried, as has sometimes been done 
 by too impetuous foreigners, the willing beast has been known to 
 drop down dead. 
 
 Speaking of the tenderness of the elephantine foot, I may mention 
 a curious detail concerning a tame elephant at Bristol. Quite un- 
 accountably it fell into bad health, and became lame. Mr. Bartlett, 
 Superintendent of the London Zoological Gardens, was requested to 
 inspect it ; and after minute examination of its feet, he remarked, 
 * You have rats here.' ' Oh yes,' was the answer ; ' there are plenty 
 of rats here !' the elephant-house being a very old building. 'Well,' 
 said he, ' they are eating the elephant ; you can see the marks of 
 their teeth on the soft part of the soles of the feet. When the 
 elephant lies down to sleep the rats come and gnaw through the 
 thick leathery pad till they reach the quick ; and next morning when 
 the poor beast goes out to walk on the gravelled paths little bits of 
 sharp flint lodge in the bitten places, and so it becomes lame.' 
 
 On Mr. Bartlett's recommendation good rat-hunting terriers were 
 thenceforward kept with the elephant until a new house could be built 
 and the big creature rapidly recovered.' 
 
 1 Concerning tame elephants as a profitable speculation, it is interesting to learn that 
 those at the London ' Zoo ' earn about 800/. a-year, besides conferring indescribable 
 
 M 3
 
 i64 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 What becomes of elephants which die in the forest is an unsolved 
 mystery, as it is exceedingly rare to find one which has died a natural 
 death. The Singhalese say that in the deep forests to the cast of 
 Adam's Peak lies a mysterious valley, only to be reached by a narrow 
 pass between deep rock walls, and that therein is a quiet lake, beside 
 which all elephants desire to lie down and die in peace. So when 
 sorely wounded, or very old, they seek to reach this happy valley, and 
 there leave their bones. But no one now living has ever been able to 
 find this bourne whence no elephant returns. 
 
 Sir Samuel Baker says that in the course of many years' hunting 
 in Asia and Africa he has occasionally, but very rarely, seen a dead 
 elephant. Most of those recorded bore the mark of a bullet. One 
 found on the Agra patenas in Ceylon was a fine tusk elephant, which 
 had evidently been killed in a furious duel with another tusker, his 
 body being literally bored in many places by the enemy's tusks. The 
 ground all round was trodden down with the heavy trampling of the 
 great warriors. But Sir Samuel says he has never seen a wild 
 elephant sick. When wounded they salve the sore with wet mud, or 
 else by blowing dry dust over it, to protect the surface from flies, 
 which would lay eggs and breed maggots. 
 
 There is a horrible fly in Ceylon which lays live maggots ; these 
 instantly commence burrowing into the flesh, and within twenty-four 
 hours grow large, and make loathsome sores. The treatment for 
 such is a teaspoonful of calomel rubbed in. 
 
 My brother's letters used to tell of the great herds which ranged 
 through the eastern forests, and how he used to watch them at night 
 coming to bathe in the great neglected tanks (like swampy lakes), and 
 in the daytime browsing peacefully or sleeping, some fanning them- 
 selves with green branches — the young ones, so innocently playful 
 miniatures of their parents, but having a good deal of shaggy hair, 
 which wears off by friction as they rub against one another, or force 
 their way through the jungle. 
 
 When a young one is captured, perhaps six months old, it at first 
 refuses food, but after a day or two it will drink a bucketful of buffalo's 
 milk ; presently it is promoted to rice and then to bananas and suc- 
 culent young grass. 
 
 enjoyment to thousands, by giving rides at 2d. a head. Many as are the riders 
 packed on those long-suffering broad backs, it is startling to be told that on the Bank 
 Holiday in 1890 no less than 24,000 twopences were taken, a number slightly in excess 
 of the whole number of visitors, so that many extravagant visitors probably indulged 
 in several such rides.
 
 ELEPHANTS 165 
 
 It is satisfactory to know that since the imposition in 1870 of the 
 ten-rupee tax on each elephant slain (in the form of a licence paid in 
 advance), the herds, which were previously in danger of being exter- 
 minated as effectually as have been the buffaloes of the American 
 prairies, have now recovered to such an extent that in the North 
 Central Province, in the Batticaloa district of the Eastern Province, 
 and in the least cultivated districts lying between Hambantota on the 
 south-east coast, as far north as the Kumbukkan river, they are now 
 probably as numerous as ever. In the months from January to March, 
 which are the driest and healthiest for sportsmen, the elephants are 
 so worried by the large buffalo-flies which infest the dense forests 
 along the base of the mountains that they betake themselves to the 
 comparatively open country near the sea-coast of Uva. 
 
 It is pretty to see the way in which, on any alarm, the young ones 
 are protected by their parents, being placed in the centre of the herd, 
 while the mothers gather round so closely as effectually to hide them. 
 The wonder is, that the little ones are not crushed and trampled under 
 foot when the closely packed mass rush off in headlong fear, perhaps, 
 as sometimes happens, down steep slippery ground, where they 
 stumble and fall. Sometimes an old mother is seen hurrying along, 
 her baby following with its little trunk twisted round the end of its 
 mother's tail to enable it to keep up. 
 
 The Singhalese have a method peculiar to themselves of capturing 
 full-grown elephants by erecting a strong stockade in the jungle, so 
 artfully contrived that wild elephants may enter it without perceiving 
 that they are being trapped. A great army of beaters, numbering 
 perhaps 4,000 or 5,000, are posted round a large tract of jungle where 
 herds are known to be ; many of the beaters are armed with guns, 
 simply to frighten the animals ; gradually they close in day after day 
 for perhaps a fortnight, till at length the ever-retreating herd find 
 themselves at the entrance of the kraal, and, once inside, their capture 
 is comparatively easy, and is effected by the treachery of tame 
 elephants, who play the part of Delilah to perfection, coaxing and 
 soothing the captives, and so covering the approach of men who con- 
 trive to creep up and slip strong rope-nooses round their legs, and then 
 haul them to big trees, where they are held prisoner, while the tame 
 ones help the captors to secure them, after which a short spell of hunger 
 and unfailing gentleness commences the work of their education. 
 
 When the English first occupied Ceylon, the herds were so 
 numerous that on grand field-days as many as 150 were sometimes
 
 i66 
 
 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 captured in one kraal, and of these a considerable number used to be 
 exported to India. For some years this trade almost perished in 
 consequence of the imposition in 1873 (one account says 1870) of 
 an export duty of ;^2o on each animal_: it revived in a measure when 
 in 1882 the royalty was reduced to ;^io, and Ceylon elephants were 
 again in demand for European menageries and for the use of Rajahs 
 in Southern India. 
 
 Mr. Ferguson gives the following statistics of the number of 
 elephants shipped during twenty years, furnished partly by the south- 
 eastern forests, and partly by those of the extreme north of the 
 Isle:— 
 
 
 
 
 No. 
 
 
 
 
 
 No. 
 
 Exported 
 
 Exported 
 
 1863 .... 173 
 
 1874 . . , . n 
 
 1864 
 
 
 
 • 194 
 
 1875 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 1865 
 
 
 
 . 271 
 
 1876 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 1866 
 
 
 
 . 203 
 
 1877 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 1867 
 
 
 
 148 
 
 1878 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 1 868 
 
 
 
 . 167 
 
 1879 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 1869 
 
 
 
 • 199 
 
 1880 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 1870 
 
 
 
 . 38 
 
 1S81 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 1871 
 
 
 
 74 
 
 1882 
 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 1S72 
 
 
 
 53 
 
 1883 
 
 
 
 
 86 
 
 1873 
 
 
 
 • 83 
 
 1884 
 
 
 
 
 51 
 
 And so on down to 1890, when 42 were exported. 
 
 When captured young, an elephant can be trained, like an affec- 
 tionate dog, to follow its master everywhere. One known as 
 ' Kurunegalla Jack,' belonging to a medical officer, used to go round 
 the hospital wards with his master, who taught him to be generally 
 useful, and even to administer pills ! A Malay soldier one day dropped 
 his pill, whereupon 'Jack ' picked it up and dropped it into the man's 
 open mouth, with a puff which blew the pill safely down ! 
 
 ' Jack ' learnt to go out shooting with his master, combining the 
 work of stalking-horse and retriever, for he would discern game afar, 
 and wander towards it in the most casual manner, acting as cover for 
 his master, and when the latter fired, he would scamper off quite 
 delighted, and return with the jungle fowl or peacock in his trunk. 
 
 Valuable as is the friendly elephant, there are certain individuals 
 very much to be avoided, namely, the * rogues,' which are solitary 
 males, either mad with pain from some chronic suffering, too often the 
 result of an old bullet wound, or else subject to an attack of
 
 ELEPHANT.'i 167 
 
 periodical madness known as iiiust^ which is a form of temporary in- 
 sanity to which the male elephant is occasionally subject, and which, 
 during a period varying from five weeks to five months, makes him a 
 very dangerous neighbour to man and beast. 
 
 A curious detail concerning Indian elephants is the fact that the 
 natives recognise three distinct castes, differing in appearance as 
 greatly as do our breeds of domestic cattle. The highest caste, or 
 thorough-bred, are called Koomeriah : they are finely modelled 
 animals, and march at a slow and stately pace. The clumsily built 
 low-caste elephants are called Meerga : they are untidy-looking, extra- 
 wrinkled animals, but comparatively light and swift. The inter- 
 mediate caste are called Dwasala. 
 
 A very remarkable characteristic of these great creatures is that 
 they are the best swimmers of any land animal. Of course this 
 talent is more valuable in a land of broad rivers, such as India, than 
 in Ceylon. Mr. Sanderson, of Mysore, mentions that he once had 
 occasion to send a troop of seventy-nine elephants from Dacca to 
 Barrackpore near Calcutta, which involved crossing not only the main 
 stream of the Ganges, but also several of its large tidal branches. 
 For six hours his elephants swam without once touching ground ; 
 then, having rested awhile on a sand-bank, they again took to the 
 water and swam for three hours more ! Not one was lost. He states 
 that this was by no means a unique swim. 
 
 It is said that elephants have an extraordinary aversion to dogs, 
 and always retreat from them. It would be well indeed if leopards 
 shared in this aversion ! They unfortunately are only too partial to 
 a feast of poor bow-wow, and are ever on the prowl, where such are 
 kept, watching for an opportunity to devour them, snatching them 
 from verandahs when peacefully asleep, or even from the side of their 
 masters. They are unpleasantly stealthy foes, never rushing boldly to 
 meet their prey, but creeping up stealthily or climbing a tree, so as to 
 be able to drop suddenly upon it. They climb as well as our house- 
 hold cat, and can even catch monkeys. They constantly sleep among 
 the branches of trees. 
 
 A good deal of confusion has been caused by the habit prevalent, 
 in Ceylon, of calling all these creatures chetahs, by which is generally 
 understood the hunting leopard of India,' which is here unknown, 
 and whose habits are altogether different. It captures its prey by 
 fleetness of foot like a dog, whereas the leopard works by stealth like a 
 
 ' Fclis jubata.
 
 1 68 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 true cat. Ceylon has two distinct varieties of leopard, of which the so- 
 called chctah is much the smaller, rarely exceeding seven feet from 
 the tip of the tail to the nose : he is beautifully marked all over with 
 small round black spots. 
 
 The panther, which is the other member of the leopard family 
 found in the Isle, is marked with black rings having a tawny centre. 
 His average length is nine feet, and his weight nearly double that of 
 the chetah. But naturalists and sportsmen differ greatly in their 
 statements about these creatures, some maintaining that Ceylon has 
 really only leopards, and that all the varieties are due to age and 
 climate, those inhabiting the hot lowlands being generally short- 
 haired, and, when old, of a very pale-yellow colour, while the 
 mountain leopards have thick fur of a rich tawny colour, approaching 
 brown. 
 
 Leopards rarely attack human beings except in self-defence. A 
 remarkable exception to this rule occurred last year in the North 
 Central Province, when a male and female chetah entered a house 
 at dawn. The female ' sat down in a corner,' while the male attacked 
 a sleeping man, sole inmate of the house. His son, who was asleep 
 close by, ran to his father's assistance and was severely mauled. On 
 the villagers coming to the rescue the chetahs made off, and the 
 victims were carried to the Vavuniya hospital, where both died of 
 blood-poisoning. 
 
 An almost identical case occurred fifteen years ago in the same 
 province, when two leopards entered a house, and the male killed 
 one of the inmates. 
 
 They are not dainty feeders, and have been known to dig up a 
 corpse and feast on it. Their habit of eating half-putrid dead 
 beasts makes a wound from a leopard's claws very dangerous, as they 
 are so liable to have been stuck into flesh, poisonous because 
 decayed ; therefore such wounds should be syringed with a very 
 weak solution of carbolic acid in cold water, in the proportion of i 
 
 to 35- 
 
 Leopards are grievously destructive to cattle, which stampede in 
 terror at the smell of one, or even of ground on which one has 
 lain. Certainly it would be no loss to the Isle if these could be 
 exterminated ! 
 
 Ceylon must, however, be congratulated on her immunity from 
 tigers, which is remarkable, as they abound in the jungles of the 
 nearest mainland in Southern India, But for the narrow Paumben
 
 ELEPHANTS 169 
 
 Passage, which is only about half a mile in width, Ceylon would be 
 a peninsula instead of an island. As it is, the tiger is so good a 
 swimmer that half a mile would nowise trouble him. Happily, 
 however, for Ceylon, the barren sand-spit, which so nearly connects 
 the two lands, has no tempting shade nor any water to induce tigers 
 to forsake their accustomed haunts and explore new ground. 
 
 Leopards have of late years become scarce about Nuwara Eliya ; 
 but abundant sport is to be obtained in the pursuit of the sambur 
 deer (which is invariably miscalled elk, though it really bears no 
 resemblance whatever to that somewhat ungainly creature, with the 
 large palmated antlers), and also of the small so-called 'red-deer,' 
 which furnishes excellent venison. 
 
 The name of red-deer is as misleading as that of elk, as the 
 animal in nowise resembles the red-deer of our Highlands. In the 
 first place, though very numerous, they never go in herds ; neither 
 do they rush straight away from a foe, but run to and fro like a hare. 
 They only measure about twenty-five inches to the shoulders, and 
 their little antlers, rarely exceeding eight inches in length, have only 
 two points, and no brow antler. But the most marked peculiarity is 
 that they have sharp tusks in the upper jaw, about an inch and a half 
 in length, like those of a wild boar, except that they curve downwards, 
 as weapons of defence instead of offence. 
 
 Another creature similarly furnished with sharp tusks is the tiny 
 mouse deer,' which only measures about twelve inches to the 
 shoulder — a pretty graceful little creature, grey, with dark spots. It 
 is commonly called the moose, also the musk-deer, probably because 
 it has no sort of likeness to a moose (elk), neither is it provided with 
 any musk-bag. It makes a very pretty pet, though apt to use its 
 tusks rather sharply. 
 
 But the sambur is the joy of sportsmen. He is very much like a 
 British red-deer, with the same character of antler, and rough, coarse, 
 dark-brown hair. He is really much larger than the Scotch red-deer, 
 but has inferior horns. He is a solitary animal, wonderfully sure- 
 footed on the most dangerous rock-ledges, and runs clean away from 
 his pursuer, if possible bolting straight up-hill, so he affords good 
 sport to his foes, who hunt him with a pack of hounds and kill him 
 with the hunting-knife. The hounds are large powerful animals, those 
 preferred being a cross between blood-hound and fox-hound, having 
 the heavy bay of the former, so as to make themselves heard when 
 
 ' Moschus meminna.
 
 I70 riVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 they have followed their quarry far into the jungle. Pure fox-hounds 
 are found to be too keen in pursuit, and so they get lost and devoured 
 in the beast-haunted forest, their chief danger being from the cat-like 
 spring of the leopard. It is only in these cool mountain districts that 
 hounds can live in any comfort, so, in the eyes of a sportsman, their 
 presence here is another feature of the mountain paradise. 
 
 All day long the great sambur lies close in the deep forest, and all 
 night he roams about feeding on the nicest young crops, and develop- 
 ing new tastes, as new products are introduced. One would suppose 
 that quinine in any form was an acquired taste, but the foliage of 
 young cinchona plantations proved specially enticing, and I believe 
 that of cacao is still more so. 
 
 So the knowledge that the hunt is in the interest of the planters 
 gives it extra zest — not that that can ever be lacking in a country 
 so beautiful and so rugged, where there is no knowing into what 
 difficulties the chase may not lead ere the day is done, up and down 
 well-nigh inaccessible gorges, clothed with dense forest — such as also 
 crowns the summit of steep grass-covered mountains — or marshy 
 bits of the patenas — perhaps (to the bewilderment of the hounds) 
 suddenly to end on the brink of some frightful precipice over which 
 the monarch of the glen has leaped, in his despair, to the misty 
 ravine far below, possibly to fall into some rushing cataract, whence 
 his mangled remains may be rescued by a tribe of hungry villagers 
 to whom such chances are a true stroke of good luck. For the flesh 
 of the deer is the very ideal of luxury to these poor folk. 
 
 He who follows hart and hounds in these mountain districts has 
 need to be in good training, for nowhere will he find grander or 
 more difficult country than much of that between Nuwara Eliya and 
 the lowlands where the rugged grassy hills of Uva are seamed by 
 mountain torrents dashing over huge boulders and masses of fallen 
 rock, or overleaping perpendicular cliffs. One of these, the Fort 
 M'Donald river, is a succession of falls and foaming cataracts, ending 
 in a sheer fall of three hundred feet, over the mighty rock rampart 
 which bounds the middle zone of these mountain terraces. 
 
 In its impetuous course this river, so justly dreaded by huntsmen, 
 forms very dangerous pools enclosed in deep rock basins, whence 
 the water in some cases disappears into subterranean caverns, thence 
 reappearing in rushing rapids, till with a thunderous roar that echoes 
 far through the mountains, it takes its last headlong leap and is lost 
 to sight in a veil of dazzling spray, far, far below.
 
 ELEPHANTS 171 
 
 Throughout its course the river is exceedingly difificult of access, 
 and as the hunted sambur (invariably called elk in Ceylon) generally 
 tries to make for the water, a day's hunting in this neighbourhood is 
 liable to try the strongest nerves and all capacities. In the annals of 
 real sport I know no chapter more thrilling than Sir Samuel Baker's 
 account of following a majestic stag up and down this frightful 
 ravine, till in his last despair the magnificent creature bounded right 
 over an awful precipice into the abyss far below, whence, with infinite 
 toil, his splendid antlers were rescued. When the villagers heard of 
 this, they toiled to the spot to secure the venison, but found that two 
 fine leopards had been beforehand with them. However, they 
 retrieved enough to reward them for their toil.' 
 
 Besides these large animals, the mountains shelter hares and 
 herds of wild pigs ; while of creatures which cannot be classed as 
 game, there are wanderoo monkeys, black and grey squirrels, 
 porcupines, rats, jackals, otters, mongooses, and civet cats. 
 
 One very attractive deer abounds on the plains, but is such a 
 lover of heat that it never roams higher than 3,000 feet above the 
 sea-level. This is the axis or spotted deer, the only gregarious deer in 
 Ceylon. It is a very pretty creature, in size and colour like our own 
 fallow deer, but having slender horns, not palmated. The female 
 has none. They are of a rich fawn colour, very dark on the back, 
 and spotted with white, and they roam about in herds of from twenty 
 to a hundred in the open park country between the hills and the sea. 
 
 For the home-sick Briton, one special charm of these grassy 
 downs is the melodious song of many skylarks, soaring and singing 
 in the bright sunlight of this far land, as joyously as when rising 
 from the fields and downs of the old country. 
 
 1 ' Eight Years in Ctylon,' Chap. VII. Longmans, Green & Co.
 
 172 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 KANDY 
 
 Tombs of the queens — Court dress — Titles — Kandyan ladies — A chief's jungle feast — 
 Pandals — Masks — Musical instruments — Leeches — How to avoid them — Pera- 
 deniya Botanical Gardens — India-rubber trees — Palms — Talipot palm — Bamboo — 
 Other gardens — Flying foxes — Various nests. 
 
 After a happy peaceful week at the Bishop's little bungalow at 
 Pallagolla, during which we saw many friends, all on their way down 
 from Nuwara Eliya to lower levels, we also followed, halting at Ram- 
 bodda (between the red and white waterfalls), where there was quite 
 a gathering of the planting community to attend a christening in the 
 neat little church. Thence by coach to Gampola, whence the railway 
 carried us through lovely country and across the wide Maha-velli- 
 ganga, the ' Great Sandy River,' to Kandy, a beautifully situated little 
 town clustering round an artificial tank, and surrounded on every side 
 by beautiful hills. Here the vegetation of the hills meets that of the 
 plains, and all the lovely varieties of foliage peculiar to each mingle in 
 rank luxuriance. 
 
 It was the home of the latest Singhalese kings, and the last place 
 to fall into the hands of foreigners. Now it is one of the three seats 
 of the English Government. Being only i,68o feet above the sea, 
 with a warm moist climate, it forms a half-way house between Colombo, 
 on the sea-level, and Nuwara Eliya, which has an elevation of 6,240 
 feet. Comfortable bungalows, each in a pleasant shady garden, sur- 
 round the lake, and are dotted all over the green hills overlooking 
 the valley. 
 
 Of course people who live on the level of the lake are practically 
 at the bottom of a deep cup, and are apt to find the steamy heat op- 
 pressive ; but the homes on the upper roads not only enjoy fresher 
 air, but far more extensive views, for beyond the red-tiled monasteries, 
 temples, and churches, which are reflected in the blue mirror far 
 below, rise the steep slopes of the verdant valley, where luxuriant 
 foliage blends with vividly green expanses of lemon and guinea grass, 
 and far beyond the green goblet stretch beautiful mountain-ranges — 
 the lovely Matale Hills and Hunasgeriya Peak ; the latter, which is 
 nearly 5,000 feet in height, often towering above clouds.
 
 o ^ 
 o j; 
 ►J -5
 
 KANDY 
 
 173 
 
 Such a view as this, generally seen through a fairy-like frame of 
 feathery bamboos and palms, is a perpetual joy, whether in the clear 
 early morning, under the bright blue sky of noonday, or when bathed 
 in the soft golden light of evening. I thought the finest point of view 
 of any was that selected many years ago by a friend of my childhood, 
 Simon Keir, who was one of the earliest European settlers here. 
 
 Kandy is indebted for its lake to Sri Wikrema Raja Singha, the 
 last of the Kandyan kings, who, for the embellishment of his capital, 
 flooded the paddy-fields in this, as also in a lower valley. The latter 
 has been restored to its original use, but the lake at Kandy happily 
 remains as a thing of beauty round which the inhabitants take their 
 daily three-mile drive with most monotonous regularity. It is sur- 
 rounded by a very ornamental low stone wall, with niches to contain 
 small lamps for illumination on certain festivals, especially at a feast 
 of lanterns in November. 
 
 A small island in the lake was reserved for the special enjoyment 
 of the ladies of the royal zenana. When the British took possession, 
 this was utilised as a powder-magazine, but now is restored to more 
 than its primitive beauty, being a miniature paradise of flowering 
 shrubs. 
 
 Though this lakelet is the making of Kandy, its creation in the 
 beginning of the present century is said to have been an occasion of 
 grievous hardship to the people, having been entirely made by com- 
 pulsory labour — the Raja-karia, which was always enforced by the 
 native kings, and by means of which the gigantic tanks for irrigation 
 and other great works were produced. In this case, however, the 
 bloodthirsty cruelty of the king made work done for him peculiarly 
 oppressive, and rich and poor, priests and soldiers, are said to have 
 all rejoiced when in 181 5 their hateful tyrant was deposed by British 
 arms. 
 
 He was captured in a mountain-cave, and was deported to the 
 Fort of Vellore, near Madras, where, solaced by the company of his 
 four queens, he was retained until his death, seventeen years later. 
 He was the last of a series of a hundred and sixty-five kings, whose 
 reigns extended over a period of 2,358 years. 
 
 Judging from an official report made by Major Johnston in 1804 
 the condition of the people cannot have been luxurious. Even rice, 
 which, although the mainstay of Eastern races, we deem such very 
 simple fare, was then throughout Ceylon, but especially in the Kandyan 
 province, reserved for the higher classes, and, he says, ' is a luxury of
 
 174 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 which the lowest order of the people seldom partake, their chief food 
 being a sort of grain that grows on the hills, with little cultivation, and 
 without watering. This, together with a root dug from the bottom of 
 the tanks, and a decoction of the bark of a tree found in abundance 
 in the forests, constitute their principal means of support.' 
 
 In those days, whatever was deemed a luxury was reserved for the 
 king and the priests. It is said that even windows, tiled roofs, and white 
 walls were prohibited for the use of subjects ; so that, with the excep- 
 tion of the king's palace and the Buddhist temples and monasteries, 
 the old town of Kandy consisted chiefly of thatched mud hovels. 
 Even in 1844, Hoffmeister speaks of 'the filthy streets of this 
 poverty-stricken city.' It now numbers about 20,000 inhabitants, of 
 whom about 250 are British ; and their comfortable homes and the 
 spires and towers of Christian churches of various denominations are 
 pleasant features in the scene. 
 
 But the really characteristic buildings are the Buddhist monas- 
 teries and colleges ; an octagonal building, in which are stored trea- 
 sures of Oriental literature ; the palace of the old kings, now the resi- 
 dence of the Government Agent ; and the ancient Hall of Audience, 
 which is now used as the District Court of Kandy, and which is a 
 very striking hall supported by many richly carved wooden pillars. 
 Close to this hall is the Maligawa, the far-famed Temple of the Dalada 
 or Tooth, which, though a mere piece of ivory half the size of my first 
 finger, is supposed to have been a veritable tooth of Gautama Buddha, 
 and is reverenced accordingly by all the millions who profess to be his 
 followers. 
 
 Naturally, in this stronghold of Buddhism, the chief characteristic 
 of the human element is the large proportion of the brethren of the 
 yellow robe of all ages and sizes — from reverend old men down to 
 quite small boys^ — all alike with shaven head, and drapery in flowing 
 lines like a Roman toga. At Kandy almost all are members of the 
 Siamese sect which wears the robe with one end thrown over the left 
 shoulder, but the right shoulder and arm always bare — thus producing 
 a fine harmony in brown and yellow. A yellow palm-leaf fan com- 
 pletes the picture, and is carried in order that the holy brother may 
 veil his eyes as he passes anything so distracting or so evil as a 
 woman. I cannot say that I have ever observed the fan used for this 
 purpose ! 
 
 It is whispered that some of these priests have taken the yellow 
 robe as the simplest method of getting a divorce from an unloved wife.
 
 KANDY T75 
 
 They are at liberty at any moment to throw off their robes and return 
 to the position of ordinary mortals — beginning life anew with a new 
 wife. But while they wear the robe they are bound to be very strict ; 
 and I must plead guilty to having occasionally, for malicious fun, 
 cordially shaken hands with friendly brethren, wondering what terrible 
 penance they would feel bound to perform in consequence ! 
 
 At Kandy I was most hospitably received and lionised by Mr. and 
 Mrs. Philip Templer, and with their kind aid and that of other friends 
 who sympathised in my wish to see everything of interest, I think 
 there were few, even of the most out-of-the-way corners, left unvisited 
 or unsketched. 
 
 Amongst those somewhat off the beaten track are the tombs of 
 the Kandyan queens — not beautiful in themselves, and somewhat 
 ruinous, but, as is invariably the case in Ceylon, glorified by the sur- 
 rounding foliage. The red-tiled double roof, shaded by luxuriant 
 palms loaded with nuts and blossom, each crown a study in green 
 and gold and brown ; gnarled old temple-trees filling the air with 
 fragrance ; and yellow-robed priests laying offerings of yellow flowers 
 before small dome-shaped relic-shrines, beneath huge bo-trees with 
 spiritual-looking white stems and light foliage, which, like that of our 
 own aspen, quivers ceaselessly even when there is scarcely a perceptible 
 breath of air. 
 
 As regards the Kandyan kings, their funeral rites were invested 
 with a strange veil of mystery and awe. As ' children of the Sun ' 
 the royal race were entitled to supreme reverence from a people who 
 worshipped the heavenly host. In order to deepen this veneration, 
 many ceremonies were observed. The funeral pyre was so great, and 
 was so constantly renewed, that it burnt for ten days, when it was 
 extinguished, and the ashes of the pyre were collected in an earthen 
 urn. 
 
 A masked figure in dark robes then appeared and, taking the urn, 
 mounted an elephant, and, heading a solemn funereal procession, led 
 the way to the Maha-velli-ganga. On reaching the brink of the river 
 he descended from his high seat, and, carrying in one hand the urn, in 
 the other a drawn sword, he silently took his place in a dark canoe, 
 which was covered with cocoa-nut blossoms and green leaves. The 
 canoe was then towed to the middle of the stream, when the dark 
 figure rose and, holding up the urn in presence of the multitude, cut 
 it in two by one blow of his sword, thus consigning to the sacred waters 
 the precious dust of the royal race of the Sun. Then, diving beneath
 
 176 TIVO ll/irrV YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 the surface, the dark-robed mask disappeared ; and the frail canoe 
 drifted down the stream, with its cargo of flowers. 
 
 The men who had collected the ashes were conveyed to the other 
 side of the river, and certain death was supposed to await them should 
 they ever return. The elephant that had borne the sacred urn was 
 thenceforth himself sacred. He, too, was sent to the opposite shore, 
 there to end his days in idleness. Thus was the royal dust disposed 
 of ; and straightway a new child of the Sun was ready to shine on the 
 darkness of his people, for just so long as his next of kin were con- 
 tent to await their little hour, — the rapidity of succession in these 
 Singhalese annals being strikingly suggestive of Oriental impatience in 
 that respect. 
 
 We made expeditions to various Buddhist temples, which are in- 
 variably nestled into some very picturesque corner, and the drive or 
 ride to them was always through lovely scenery. In one of these — a 
 white temple beside a dark rock, and which has the peculiarity of 
 being three storeys high — we were interested by the wall frescoes, 
 all in the crudest primitive colours, depicting scenes in Buddhist 
 mythology, and the penalties of divers sins. Bright blue devils with 
 red-hot tongs are shown pulling out the teeth of one wretched victim, 
 while the reward of cruelty is exemplified by a hunter being torn into 
 fragments by blue dogs. 
 
 In a side chapel lay a reclining image of Buddha fifty-seven feet 
 long, and in the inner shrine worshippers were laying graceful offerings 
 of rosy lotus-blossoms and pale yellow roses. In the upper storey 
 treasures of gold and silver work, small figures of Buddha, and bo- 
 trees finely wrought in metal, are stored within a fine bronze dagoba, 
 and all were courteously exhibited by their yellow-robed guardians. 
 
 To me all the rock temples have a special attraction : they are 
 always picturesquely niched, and involve something of a scramble. 
 We drove from Kandy to see one at Hindo Galla — ascending by steep 
 rock steps to a red-tiled, white-pillared temple, nestling beneath a 
 huge boulder of chocolate-coloured rock with yellow and grey on the 
 under side, and a group of yellow-robed monks supplying a perfect 
 touch of colour, with surroundings of dark rocks, kitool palms, and a 
 temple-tree loaded with fragrant blossom. Also a fine large bo-tree, 
 surrounded by several terraces of masonry all lined with triangular 
 niches for larrips, and glowing with yellow marigolds — sacred on 
 account of their colour. 
 
 All through this month of May I find in my journal perpetually
 
 KANDY 177 
 
 recurring entries of rain, rain, rain — including some magnificent 
 thunderstorms. However, no one seemed to mind the weather, 
 except the luckless natives who are not provided with waterproofs, 
 and who here, as in India, are exceedingly sensitive to the smallest 
 fall of temperature — especially dreading the delicious coolness of 
 early dawn. 
 
 On two days there were races at Peradeniya, which were attended 
 by every one, notwithstanding the rain. Happily the intervening day 
 was glorious. I might say, of course it was, as it was the day chosen 
 for the Queen's birthday levee, and a very pretty and curious sight 
 it was. It was held in the audience-hall of the old palace of the 
 Kandyan kings, a low dark hall supported by a double row of 
 handsome wooden pillars. Their capitals are richly carved, and both 
 on these and on the walls are shown flights of the geese sacred to 
 Buddha. 
 
 The distinctive feature of the scene was, as it ever must be, the 
 very handsome and very extraordinary court-dress of the Kandyan 
 chiefs ; and I may remark once for all, that, as compared with a 
 grand Indian durbar, this is the one only phase of gorgeousness quite 
 peculiar to Ceylon, and in which no invidious comparison is possible. 
 To give an idea of the dress by mere description is almost im- 
 possible. 
 
 In the first place, though the Kandyan chiefs are naturally a fine 
 handsome set of men, their object seems to be to make themselves 
 appear very much bigger ; therefore, to begin with, instead of wearing 
 a single piece of cloth as a comboy or long kilt, they wear seven pieces 
 of very fine silk or muslin, probably embroidered in gold, and heavily 
 fringed, each nine yards in length. These sixty-three yards are 
 wound round and round the waist, caught up so as to form a divided 
 skirt over tight white trousers, which end in a neat frill above the bare 
 brown feet. I was assured that some of the very great swells literally 
 contrive to wind on 150 yards ! The folding is so contrived that the 
 figure gradually tapers from the ankle up to the waist, round which 
 (of course, many inches wider than the real waist) is fastened a 
 broad gold-embroidered velvet belt. The shape of the man thus 
 adorned is that of a peg-top ! 
 
 Over a shirt or vest fastened with splendid studs is worn a short 
 jacket with very large gigot sleeves to above the elbow. These 
 jackets are of the brightest coloured brocaded silks or velvet, all gold- 
 embroidered, as are also the very peculiar and gorgeous velvet hats, 
 
 N
 
 178 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 of which you never see two alike, though in shape all are like very 
 large rather flat pincushions, and surmounted with an eccentric orna- 
 ment like a miniature Christmas-tree of gold and jewels. The gold 
 embroidery makes these head-dresses exceedingly heavy. The long 
 black hair is parted on the forehead like a woman's, and is fastened at 
 the back in the usual konde or knot. An enormous, ring worn on the 
 third or fourth finger, completes a costume whose gaudiness is effec- 
 tually harmonised by the rich brown colour of the dark-eyed chief, 
 and a group of fifty or sixty of these very fine birds in their very fine 
 feathers is a sight well worthseeing. Some wear a full-plaited muslin 
 tippet over the jacket. 
 
 Only think how inconvenient this wonderful official dress must 
 have been in the reign of the Kandyan kings, in whose presence the 
 highest chiefs were bound to crouch in lowly humility, and if obliged 
 to pass in front of him, even at a considerable distance, they were 
 compelled to stoop so low as apparently to be creeping ! Happily 
 under British rule all men may walk upright, and the common-wear 
 costume of these gorgeous Ratemahatmayas is the semi-European 
 dress adopted in the colleges, — the comboy or waist-cloth, the konde 
 or knot of long back-hair, and the tortoiseshell comb being the only 
 distinctive features, all other articles of dress being British. 
 
 The court dress of the minor head-men is marked by a simplicity 
 by no means unbecoming. Their only distinctive feature is the 
 saucer-shaped hat, but theirs is of plain white material. Their only 
 other garment is the simple long loin-cloth, and a cloth or belt 
 wrapped round the waist. Thence upwards they are clad in nature's 
 own suit of silky brown. 
 
 Besides these there was a great display of distinctive dresses, the 
 variety of turbans and other head-dresses alone forming quite a study. 
 Prominent in the crowd are the Mudaliyars, Singhalese officials in 
 their quaint, half native, half Dutch dress. Their jet-black hair is 
 rolled up at the back in the usual konde, into which is stuck the very 
 high tortoiseshell comb, while the usual semicircular comb is worn 
 round the back of the head, with the ends above each ear. Instead 
 of trousers they retain the long comboy worn to the feet, but these are 
 encased in white stockings and patent-leather shoes ; the upper man 
 is clothed in a long Dutch-looking official coat of dark-blue cloth with 
 large gold buttons, a white waistcoat displaying gorgeous buttons and 
 large gold chain, and high shirt-collar and silk neck-tie ; and a gold 
 belt, with a small curved sword, complete this hybrid but eminently
 
 KANDV 179 
 
 respectable costume. The little sword is often studded with gold and 
 gems. 
 
 The Mudaliyars are officials of the low country, and are of three 
 ranks ; the lowest are chief revenue officers of large districts. About 
 twenty are called Mudaliyars of the Governor's Gate, and are described 
 as equivalent in standing to our * captain and aide-de-camp.' The 
 Maha (or Great) Mudaliyar is the Governor's chief interpreter. Below 
 all these rank the Muhandirams and Arachchis. 
 
 Many of these gentlemen are burdened with such stupendous 
 names as may well make them envy simple Tom Brown or John Smith. 
 Here is one name, ' Solomon Dia-Abayawikrama Jayatilaka Senawi- 
 ratna Raja Kumararesan Kadakorala Bandaranayaka.' Another is, 
 ' Peter Abraham Dias Abayawikrama Jayatilaka Bandaranavaka.'" 
 And yet another, ' Mahawasala Kurana Liyana Mudianslage Don 
 Abraham Karunatilika Abavaratna.' These are taken almost at 
 random from the official list.' 
 
 Other titles ofthe low country are : Ralahami, Mahatmaya, Nilame, 
 and Appuhami, which respectively describe a headman, a gentleman, a 
 high-officer, or a man of middle-class. A Disawa governs a province 
 subject, of course, to the British Government agent, while the gorgeous 
 Kandyan officials, whose court dress I have just described, are 
 Ratemahatmayas. The chief of a district is an Adigar. A village 
 chief is a Gamarala, the chief officer of a village is the Arachchila, 
 and his subordinate is a Vidana. These are but a few out of many. 
 
 The ladies are distinguished by titles as varied as those of their 
 lords. The wife of a chief is Kumarihami, other ladies of high birth 
 are Walawwe-mahatmayo, of which title, Mahatmayo simply means 
 madam, and is applicable to any lady. The wife of a minor chief is 
 
 1 1 recently received an account of the funeral in January 1888 of Mr. Rajapakse, 
 a greatly respected Mudaliyar of the Governor's Gate. The funeral procession, which 
 was upwards of a mile in length, was preceded by the pipers of the ist Battalion of 
 Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders playing coronachs. Then followed eighty-three 
 Buddhist priests of both the Aniarapura and the Siam sects, led by three high priests. 
 The hearse, which was drawn by four black horses, was followed by upwards of two 
 hundred carriages (native and European) ; then came nearly three hundred servants 
 and dependants from the principal estates of the deceased, and seven hundred mourners 
 from other districts, also a file of fifty of the Lascorien Guard, in full official dress, 
 and a band of piping musicians in strange ancient costume. To the music of the 
 latter were added the efforts of forty-five tom-tom-beaters, who played the Dead March 
 in real Oriental fashion. 
 
 At the grave the Buddhist priests chanted stanzas, a high priest delivered a funeral 
 oration, and jasmine flowers were thrown into the grave. 
 
 N 2
 
 l8o TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Menike, and Etani and Lamahami mark the feminine of other 
 grades. 
 
 I was present one evening at a grand reception of Kandyan ladies 
 at the PaviHon (as the Government House at Kandy is called — a 
 pleasant house, two storeys high, with broad cool verandahs and 
 delicious gardens, with shrubberies extending far up the hill). The 
 ladies, who do not aim at increasing their apparent bulk, looked 
 strangely diminutive in proportion to their magnificent lords. Their 
 plain modest dress consisted of the simple coinboy — i.e. skirt of fine 
 white muslin, with a gold stripe running through it, and neat little 
 gold-spangled jacket ; their long black hair caught in a loose knot 
 behind, and fastened with gold pins — never any covering on the head ; 
 and though their fine old family jewels will repay close inspection, the 
 mode of cutting and setting is such, that they have none of the 
 brilliancy which we prize in gems. 
 
 Whatever other title she may own, a Singhalese lady is generally 
 described as Menike, i.e. ' The Jewel ' — a pleasant suggestion of 
 honour, well carried out by the fact that the enforced seclusion of 
 zenana life is unknown in Ceylon, where women enjoy freedom as 
 absolute as that of their Western sisters. 
 
 Most of the chiefs who attended the reception could talk more 
 or less English, but the ladies were as deficient therein as we were in 
 Kandyan, so the evening was decidedly stiff. 
 
 Speaking of official titles, I must not omit those connected with 
 the Buddhist temples. The principal lay officer in charge of the 
 Temple of the Tooth is the Diyawadana (or Dewa) Nilame, and the 
 lay incumbent of the temple is the Basnayaka Nilame. All these 
 official titles were formerly conferred annually, but I believe that now 
 each is bestowed for life. The chief high priest is styled Maha Nayaka 
 Annanse, and the second chief high priest is Anunayaka. Priests and 
 deacons are Terunnanse and Ganinnanse. A Kapuwa is the officiating 
 priest in what is called a Devil Temple, which is a form of Hindooism 
 even more debased than the original ; a Yaka-dura is a devil-dancer, 
 and a Wedarale is a native doctor, whose science of healing is 
 generally much on a level with that of the aforesaid devil-dancers. 
 
 I fear this page will prove as dull reading as a chapter of genealogy, 
 but to any one travelling in the Isle it is interesting to understand the 
 titles which so often meet the ear. 
 
 The Queen's birthday was also celebrated by a pretty ball at the 
 Pavilion, followed by a club ball, at both of which the planting com-
 
 KANDY i8i 
 
 munity mustered strong, with that hearty enjoyment of a good dance, 
 and of life in general, which is so very characteristic of society in 
 Ceylon. 
 
 Of various pleasant dinner-parties, the most interesting was one 
 to the Government agents of the Central, Northern, North-Western, 
 Western, Southern, and Eastern Provinces. I believe that in the 
 days of native rule, seven kings reigned over seven little kingdoms, 
 but under English rule Ceylon was divided into six Provinces until 
 1873, when a seventh was created, namely, the North-Central, of 
 which Mr. Uickson ' was appointed first Government agent. A few 
 years later the great neglected district of Uva, in the south-east of the 
 Isle, was created a separate province ; and finally, in January 1889, 
 the district of Sabaragamua, lying between the Central and Southern 
 Provinces, was also created a province, thus making a total of nine. 
 
 Specially interesting to me was a grand breakfast in the real old 
 Kandyan style, given in honour of the Governor by the Dewa Nilame 
 and another gorgeously apparelled native official. The occasion was 
 that of inspecting the land near the river, in view of proposed measures 
 for irrigation. It was a beautiful drive through lovely scenery, and 
 as we approached the scene of action, the road was thronged with 
 gaily dressed natives, and fifteen elephants with grotesque housings. 
 There is a much larger muster of elephants at some of the Temple 
 festivities, but even fifteen suffice to stir up a good deal of dust on a 
 hot day. 
 
 If India excels in ' barbaric pomp,' there is one detail in which 
 Ceylon has the field quite to herself — namely, in the erection of 
 pandals, which are a peculiarly graceful style of triumphal arch. In 
 no other country have I seen anything like these structures, which 
 are generally very light, and always in good taste. 
 
 This was my first introduction to these arches of welcome, so they 
 had the additional fascination of novelty. Their construction is 
 generally very simple, but always effective and very varied, and the 
 rapidity with which they are run up, to do honour to any guest of 
 mark, is surprising, as is also the lavish destruction of fruit-bearing 
 palms and palm-blossoms, which are used for the perpetually re- 
 curring decorations — often on a very extensive scale. Indeed it is 
 whispered that their creation is by no means an unmixed joy to those 
 most closely concerned — namely, the villagers, whose head-men 
 require them to find the bamboos, arecas, and other materials, to say 
 
 1 Now Sir John F. Dickson,
 
 l82 TIVO HArrV YEARS IN CFA'LON 
 
 nothing of days and days of unpaid work,' all for the honour and 
 glory of welcoming a stranger. 
 
 In the first instance the skeleton framework, though sometimes 
 composed of tall bamboos, is often made of the perfectly upright stems 
 of the areca palm. These are frequently thickly entwined with long 
 trails of the exquisitely graceful and delicate climbing ferns, or with 
 a very rich species of stag's-horn moss, which grows luxuriantly in 
 many places. (Its native name is badal-wanassa, which I believe 
 means 'The Goldsmith's Curse,' so called because a luckless jeweller 
 is said to have been driven mad in the effort to reproduce it in 
 gold at the bidding of the king.) To this groundwork are perhaps 
 affixed the white young leaves of the cocoa palm or leaves of the so-called 
 sago palm, or graceful fronds of the Kitool or jaggery palm, which 
 are so like gigantic leaves of maiden-hair fern. Several kinds of fern 
 are freely used, varying of course with the district. Sometimes a light 
 trellis-work is all covered with lovely mosses such as we cherish in 
 hothouses and stoves, relieved here and there with bright blossoms, 
 or with the white leaves and blossoms of the candle-nut. 
 
 On some of the most effective pandals, only three or four varieties 
 of foliage are employed, in others almost every type of fruit and 
 flower is represented ; pine-apples and screw-pines, green and gold 
 oranges, clusters of the large rich golden-brown nuts of the palmyra 
 palm, clusters of the small areca-nut, or of cocoa-nuts of all ages from 
 ivory-like infants to full-grown green or yellow nuts, long trailing 
 bunches of the grape-like berries of the Kitool, large yellow shaddocks 
 — in short, whatever fruit is available, but always so put together as 
 to produce an effect of fairy-like lightness, with the almost invariable 
 finishing touch of several plumes of cocoa or areca palm blossom, 
 which is quite unique in its pure beauty. 
 
 Of course, in British lands, even these materials might be so 
 massed as to look heavy, but a Singhalese pandal is always elegant. 
 Latterly, however, the occasional use of bunting, numerous small 
 flags, and strips of scarlet and white calico marks a departure from 
 the primitive artistic simplicity. I must not omit to mention the 
 spires and pinnacles of deftly-woven palm-leaves, nor the singularly 
 light effect produced by a fringe of large yellow banana-leaves torn 
 into ribbons, which is sometimes suspended all along either side of 
 the road where the honoured guest is to pass. 
 
 1 Where land is held on the condition of performing all such services when 
 required.
 
 KANDY 183 
 
 There was a full attendance of the Kandyan chiefs in court dress, 
 each carried in the old style in a hot stuffy palanquin. These were 
 preceded by a company of musicians and devil-dancers in most 
 fantastic attire, each wearing a large breastplate, and a sort of harness 
 of shells and beads. Also a very curious silver head-dress like a 
 crown, combined with a tall hat with a peak whence flows a long 
 streamer. Others wore extraordinary and most hideously grotesque 
 masks. One of the strangest, with horrid teeth and large tusks, had 
 a cobra with distended hood over the forehead, and one above each 
 glaring eye ; while on either side, two dancing figures projected like 
 ears. 
 
 There is a considerable variety of these monstrosities, all of which 
 are strictly reproduced from very ancient patterns. They are made 
 of plaster gaudily coloured, and are manufactured at Bentota, half- 
 way between Colombo and Galle. These alarming ugly masks are 
 worn by the professional exorcists, who are called in, in cases of 
 grievous illness, to scare the malignant devils to whose influence all 
 suffering is attributed. They continue their noisy incantations the 
 live-long night beside the miserable patients : no wonder that these 
 so often die of the would-be remedy. Less repulsive masks are borne 
 by the actors in village comedies, which, of course, are intended to 
 be funny. 
 
 As to the musicians, I fear that Oriental music can never be other 
 than torture to Western ears, and the musical instruments of Ceylon 
 consist of shrill ivory horns, drums, and ' tom-toms,' which are a sort 
 of tambourine made of well-cured sheepskin tightly stretched over a 
 wooden frame. This is struck with the fingers, and men, women, 
 and children seem never to weary of it, as the accompaniment to 
 interminable songs. In all the temples huge chank shells are blown 
 as trumpets, and produce ear-splitting blasts, with which the priests 
 delight to murder the sleep of their neighbours all through the night. 
 Happily, when Europeans live near a temple, a hint from the local 
 authorities places some limit on the hours of these dreadful ' services 
 of praise.' 
 
 Only think how terrible must have been the effect when, as 
 recorded in old Pali chronicles, the military band of the Singhalese 
 King Dutuagaimunu was composed of sixty-four kinds of drums, 
 which produced a roar as of thunder, while the shrieks of numberless 
 great chanks rent the heavens. Assuredly if, as we are credibly 
 informed, a whole English army ran away at the blast of a hundred
 
 1 84 TIVO IIArrV YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 Scotch pipers, the foes of the Singhalese army might well fly at the 
 blast of even a score of temple chanks. That was 300 b.c, and 
 happily most of those drums have ceased to exist. We voted the 
 survivors quite bad enough, as the dancers and musicians danced 
 and played for our benefit till all our heads ached. One of the 
 dances was very funny. A man on stilts represented a giant 
 towering above all his fellows. This was to illustrate the dignity of 
 royalty or its representative as compared with ordinary mortals. 
 
 On reaching our destination we found a most imposing group of 
 temporary bungalows of bamboo and palm-leaves run up for the day, a 
 large central bungalow in which was spread an excellent breakfast, and 
 a series of beautiful dressing-rooms for all the different sets of guests, 
 those for the most honoured guests being hung with white calico, with 
 delicate ferns pinned on in graceful tracery. White, being the royal 
 colour, denotes special respect — a royal gift is wrapped in white and 
 carried on the head ; white cloths are spread over the seats prepared 
 for great folk, and in ancient days over their pathway also. The 
 rooms for lesser folk were hung with strips of bright calico or other 
 material. Among the hangings of the breakfast hall was a large 
 Gumming tartan shawl, which, of course, was said to be specially in 
 my honour ! From the fact of its being so very bright (emerald 
 green and scarlet, with black and white stripes), this, my clan tartan, 
 finds special favour with Oriental races, so that I have frequently 
 seen it in most unexpected and remote places, occasionally worn as a 
 turban. 
 
 Happily this day the weather proved perfect, which was more 
 than we could always say, for England itself could scarcely have given 
 us a more uncertain climate than our experience of Kandy in May. 
 However, we walked or drove in every direction, sketching temples 
 and foliage, river, lake, and distant mountains, and returning with our 
 dresses so embroidered with the sharp spikes of Spanish grass that it 
 was a good half-hour's work every evening to pick them out. More- 
 over, there were few days when, if we ventured to leave the beaten 
 tracks, we did not bring home some land-leeches ! They are little 
 brown creatures, about half or a quarter of an inch in length ; but 
 they can stretch themselves till they are a couple of inches long and 
 thin as a thread. They literally swarm in the moist grass and foliage. 
 I suppose that in a general way they contrive to exist on water (on 
 the principle ' Quand 07i 71' a pas ce que Voji aime, il faut aimer ce que 
 Von a!^); but certainly they lose no chance of securing a good drink
 
 KANDV 185 
 
 at the expense of any animal, human or otherwise, which they can 
 possibly attack. 
 
 Strange to say, they totally disappear in dry weather, and what 
 becomes of them no one knows ; but no sooner does rain fall, even a 
 single heavy shower, than they are again swarming, and you see them 
 sitting up on end (the thickest end), with the thread-like point, which 
 is the head, furnished with five pairs of eyes, waving in every direc- 
 tion watching for their prey. (I have already referred to these pests, 
 but verbal repetition may help to suggest their too frequent presence 
 in real life !) 
 
 Should you incautiously venture to sit down on the cool inviting 
 grass in pleasant green shade, it is as though you issued a general in- 
 vitation to the thirsting legions, for straightway you see them approach 
 from every side, advancing by a succession of jerks. They fix their 
 head on the ground, the body forming an arch, then bring up the 
 tail, and again dart the head forward ; and while you are flicking 
 them off in one direction others are stealthily approaching, and 
 making their way through the meshes of your stockings, whence 
 they travel all over you, and feast unnoticed till your attention is 
 attracted by little streams of blood. Probably you never discover 
 them till you get home again, and then woe betide you if you pull 
 them off : in that case the bite is very likely to fester, especially in 
 the case of any one who is out of health ; whereas if you let them 
 drink their little fill they will fall off, and the application of a drop 
 of sweet oil secures a speedy and clean healing. But if you object 
 to being treated as the leeches' wine-vat, and have a little salt, lime- 
 juice, or brandy at hand, a touch of either of these will cause them 
 to relax their hold. Indeed, a preliminary application of lime-juice 
 generally wards off their attack. 
 
 On some of our marches through the dense jungle, where the 
 narrow footpath only allowed us to travel single file, or when, after 
 rain, we crossed plains clothed with rank grass, it seemed as though 
 the advance of the riders sounded a call to the approaching feast, so 
 that the horsekeepers following on foot were severely attacked, their 
 bare legs sometimes streaming with blood at the end of a march. 
 The horses also suffered considerably. 
 
 But to horses, cattle, dogs, and other animals, a much more serious 
 foe is the cattle-leech, which abounds in the rank vegetation around 
 the neglected tanks and other stagnant pools, and which attaches 
 itself to the muzzle or nostrils of creatures coming to drink, often
 
 1 86 TJvn iiArrv years in cf.ylon 
 
 passing thence into the throat, and causing great suffering and some- 
 times death. 
 
 The famihar leech formerly so largely used in medicine (well do 
 I remember the large glass jar in which our old nurse used to keep 
 about a dozen of these ugly creatures, and how on one occasion 
 they escaped, and kept us in a state of terror for several days, till the 
 housemaids retrieved the full tale of corpses in the course of carpet- 
 sweeping !)— these useful allies of the two-legged leech are found in 
 the swampy rice-fields, but are about twice the size of their European 
 cousins, and are thirsty in proportion. 
 
 I had gained some experience of leeches when camping in the 
 Himalayas, where the water-leeches proved peculiarly trying to dogs, 
 and where the small land-leeches infest the lower spurs of that great 
 mountain-range. Europeans try to defend themselves against these 
 vexatious little foes by wearing leech-gaiters ; but as the wily creatures 
 generally contrive to wriggle their way inside, we concluded that 
 these really tended to their feasting in peace, so we generally 
 preferred to dispense with them. 
 
 The land-leeches in Ceylon are very local. Thus, while they 
 swarm all about Kandy and Matel^, at Nalande, which is only 
 distant about fifteen miles, we saw none, and were assured that the 
 place was free from them. 
 
 In case of alarming timid travellers, I ought to state that people 
 who are content to stick to beaten tracks may leave the Isle without 
 even seeing one of these pests ; but I speak from an artist's experi- 
 ence, ever on the look-out for the best possible point of view, even 
 if to reach it involved climbing through stiff jungle or tall grass 
 (which is fairly safe if you always rattle a stick in front of your feet, 
 to give lurking serpents time to get out of your way, as they are 
 delighted to do when possible). 
 
 In Ceylon, however, I found that many of the loveliest sketching- 
 grounds were absolutely untenable to a defenceless artist ; so necessity, 
 as usual, proved the mother of invention. I always carried a large 
 waterproof rug, and had also a large waterproof sack, which secured 
 my bedding from rain or dust, as the case might be. So, whenever 
 the desirable sketching ground was likely to prove very leechy, I 
 commenced operations by spreading the waterproof rug on the 
 ground, with the sack in the very middle, and my paint-box and 
 sketching-block in position. Then, divesting myself of muddy boots, 
 I stepped into the sack, which I then tied securely under niy arms,
 
 KANDY 187 
 
 and thus prepared, set to work, at the same time keeping a watchful 
 eye on the rug, so as to flick off all adventurous assailants— and 
 many they always were. 
 
 By this means I was enabled to secure many sketches which 
 would otherwise have been quite impossible, especially one in the 
 beautiful botanical gardens at Peradeniya, four miles from Kandy, of 
 a glade where the exquisite Thunbergia, starred with myriads of blue- 
 grey blossoms, climbs from a carpet of the freshest, richest grass 
 to the very summit of a large group of trees, thence drooping in 
 graceful festoons, and linking them all together into one fairy-like 
 sanctuary, haunted by dainty birds and radiant butterflies. I always 
 remember the sunlight falling through that exquisite veil of delicate 
 green and lavender as an ideal of tropical perfection. Like many 
 other flowers which now grow so luxuriantly in Ceylon, the Thun- 
 bergia is not indigenous, having been imported from Burmah. 
 
 My anti-leech panoply also enabled me to secure a large and 
 careful study of the magnificent avenue of old india-rubber trees just 
 outside of Peradeniya Gardens. Surely no other botanical gardens 
 in the world have so stately and unique an approach. One of these 
 grand trees might well be the pride of any garden, and here we have 
 a double row of giants, interlacing their great boughs so as to form a 
 complete canopy of glossy dark-green foliage, while the smooth 
 silvery grey stems are buttressed by a labyrinth of huge snake-like 
 roots, overspreading the whole ground for about a hundred feet round 
 each tree, and of course all coiled and intertwined like a nightmare 
 of writhing pythons ! But when you look closer, you see that these 
 roots are all flattened, so that they really form a maze of low walls. 
 
 Of course this noble avenue of Ficus elastica is prized for its 
 beauty. But now that Ceylon so fully recognises the necessity of the 
 greatest possible variety in her products, attention has been turned to 
 the cultivation of various species of trees, which, when wounded, 
 weep the large solid tears which trickle down the stem, and harden 
 into the india-rubber of commerce. These tears are really the milk 
 of the tree, totally distinct from the sap, and flowing in separate 
 channels : being of the nature of an excretion, and the tree being 
 nowise dependent on it for nourishment, its removal does the plant 
 no injury. 
 
 It is obtained by bleeding the young trees with a pricker, which 
 can be done daily for a considerable part of the year (as many as 240 
 days are spoken of as possible), the instrument used being either a
 
 iSS TJJ'O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 small double wheel like a spur with sharp points, or else one shaped 
 like a V, with sharp cutting edges, which stabs right through the 
 outer bark. Coolies engaged in stabbing the trees and scraping off 
 the tears shed on the previous day, can collect about half a pound in 
 the course of a day's work. 
 
 This quantity, however, varies greatly, the yield of the Ficus 
 elastica being only about ten per cent, of pure milk, whereas the 
 Para rubber {Hevea brasiliensis), which is the most valued in com- 
 merce, yields about thirty per cent. The Ceara rubber also yields 
 much milk of excellent quality, and would grow well at no cost of 
 cultivation beyond that of planting on thousands of acres now 
 abandoned to weeds or thickets of lantana and guava. But the trees 
 are slow-growing, and it is as yet a question whether the crop can be 
 made to pay the expense of collecting it. 
 
 This cultivation is therefore experimental, as is also that of the 
 various gutta-percha yielding trees of Malacca and the Malayan 
 Archipelago — trees whose thick white milk, lying between the bark 
 and the wood, is collected in the Malayan forests by cutting down 
 the whole tree, and even then only extracting a very small proportion 
 of the milk, not more than .j'gth it is said ! though it is believed that, 
 by pounding and boiling the bark, the whole might be obtained. 
 No wonder that Sir Joseph Hooker has said that ' the time cannot 
 be far distant when the natural sources of gutta-percha will be 
 definitely used up.' 
 
 Seeing how very large and ever-increasing is the demand for both 
 caoutchouc and gutta-percha, it would certainly be satisfactory if their 
 cultivation in a British colony can be made to pay. 
 
 I returned again and again to the stately India-rubber Avenue, 
 and became a familiar visitor in the cool shady gardens, for which it 
 would be impossible to imagine a more perfect situation than this 
 beautiful semi-tropical basin, secure alike from the parching heat of 
 Colombo, and from the sharp frosts of Nuwara Eliya. Here the 
 heat is tempered by the heavy rainfall attracted by the surrounding 
 mountains, producing a warm steaming atmosphere, in the highest 
 degree favourable to luxuriant growth. 
 
 The garden is so called by courtesy, for it rather resembles a 
 combination of park and shrubbery : the late Director, Dr. Thwaites, 
 who for so many years was the presiding genius here, deemed flowers 
 of very small account, his affections being all absorbed by trees and 
 foliage. But viewed as a park, it is beautiful. There is none of the
 
 KANDY 189 
 
 stiffness of a l)otanical garden ; nursery grounds arc kept well out of 
 sight ; and all manner of ornamental shrubs and clumps of noble 
 trees, with here and there some gigantic specimen of the sacred 
 banyan or other member of the great fig family, are picturesquely 
 sprinkled over well-kept verdant lawns. 
 
 Several magnificent groups of foreign palms are especially attrac- 
 tive. The king-palm of Havannah, the oil-palm of Guinea, all the 
 most remarkable members of the great palm family to be found in 
 India, China, Africa, and South America ; palms from Seychelles 
 and from Brazil, with huge fan-shaped leaves, or gigantic feathery 
 fronds — all meet here as on a neutral ground, where they unite to 
 form one beautiful combination, a most admirable family gathering ! 
 Nor are the indigenous palms lacking : all are here assembled in one 
 noble group, including the strange Katu-kitful, ' the thorny palm,' 
 the stem of which grows to a height of about eight feet from the 
 ground, and is thickly coated with long sharp thorns — a most un- 
 pleasant tree to crush against in a thick jungle. ^ There is also a species 
 of dwarf date-palm, only four or five feet high, which is indigenous 
 in the hottest parts of Ceylon, but its fruit is almost worthless ; and 
 there is a sago-palm which, however, the natives do not take the 
 trouble to cultivate for the sake of the pith, though they do prepare 
 a beautifully white flour from the nuts, which grow in clusters like 
 those of the areca. This also is a dwarf palm, rarely exceeding 
 fifteen feet in height, and peculiar to the hot dry districts. Its foliage 
 is very light and feathery. The flour prepared from the nuts makes 
 excellent cakes, which, with wild bees' honey, have sometimes proved 
 precious to sportsmen in remote jungle villages. 
 
 The Seychelles contribute a fine specimen of their own particular 
 palm, the coco-de-vier, which was so long known only by the great 
 double-nuts (shaped like a kidney when cut open) which tidal 
 currents floated far out on the Indian Ocean and to the shores of the 
 Maldive Islands, where they were occasionally picked up by sailors 
 and brought home to puzzle botanists. It was not till last century 
 that the parent palm was discovered in the Seychelles, and it was 
 found that the palm, with a fruit like twin cocoa-nuts, bears a crown 
 of huge fan-shaped leaves, akin to those of the Palmyra palm, 
 crowning a stem a hundred feet high. 
 
 The garden covers about a hundred and fifty acres — a most fertile 
 
 1 This used to be called the Caryota horrida, but I believe modern botanists class 
 it as a thorny species of areca palm.
 
 I90 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 ptiiiiinsula of rich alluvial soil, encircled on three sides by the Maha- 
 velli-ganga. 
 
 Among the lovely things which grow wild in rank profusion on 
 the banks of that beautiful river, and which in all that part of the 
 country is so abundant as to be considered rather a troublesome 
 weed, is the delicate sensitive plant,' with its dainty blossoms like 
 balls of pink floss silk, and the fragile jointed leaves like fairy 
 branches, each edged with tiny leaflets, of which we treasure such 
 poor little specimens in our English greenhouses, and, as children, 
 watch with ever new pleasure to see how, at the gentlest breath, or 
 the accidental touch of a fly, all the little branches droop, and the 
 leaflets fold themselves closely together. 
 
 Here you watch a lizard or a squirrel run down a tree and brush 
 the nearest leaves, and as they instantly shrink and fall, all the others 
 take alarm, and you see them closing their leaflets as though an 
 electric thrill has passed from one to the other. 
 
 Do you remember how Longfellow refers to these sensitive leaves 
 when speaking of Evangeline's strange forebodings of ill ? — 
 
 ' As at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the prairies, 
 Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking mimosa, 
 So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad forebsdings of evil, 
 Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom has attained it.' 
 
 The unconscious action of these leaves always seems to me a 
 perfect illustration of that sense of dull aching anxiety which is so 
 nearly akin to physical suffering, and which is so expressively de- 
 scribed as serrement du cxur — a phrase for which we have no English 
 equivalent. 
 
 Splendid clumps of bamboo, imported from Java and Malacca, 
 are mirrored in the broad glassy stream, and truly in the whole 
 vegetable world I know nothing more beautiful than these monarchs 
 of the grass kingdom, with their jointed stems, like polished green or 
 yellow marble, and exquisite plumes of feathery foliage, growing in 
 clumps upwards of a hundred feet in height, and curving gracefully 
 like branches of gigantic ostrich feathers. 
 
 It is scarcely possible to realise that such stately growth can all 
 be the work of one season, but so it is, for, though some species are 
 about thirty years before they flower at all, yet, in common with the 
 humblest grasses of the field, the bamboo flowers but once and then 
 
 ' Mimosa sensiliva.
 
 KAND V igi 
 
 dies, to renew its glory in the following year. On an average, each 
 clump numbers about sixty stems, all springing from one hidden root, 
 which creeps beneath the ground, throwing up stems here and there. 
 These peep above ground during the rains, about July, and shoot up 
 at the rate of twelve inches in twenty-four hours.' The Malacca 
 bamboo, which is the largest known species, continues growing till it 
 attains a height sometimes considerably above a hundred feet, with an 
 average diameter of nine inches. The common bamboo indigenous 
 to Ceylon is a very much smaller plant with a yellow stem. 
 
 Strange to say, some species of bamboo flower gregariously, all 
 those in one district coming to maturity in the same year, after 
 which no flowers of that species will blossom till a new generation 
 has come to full age. 
 
 The male and female plants are distinct : the latter are by far the 
 most numerous, and yield the light hollow stems, jointed at regular 
 intervals by thick wood forming distinct partitions, so that each 
 bamboo is in so many water-tight compartments, ready to be divided 
 into so many buckets or boxes. In the gardens a section of the large 
 green stem is sometimes used as a secure packing-case wherein to 
 send cut-flowers to a distance. Joints of bamboo form the handy 
 flower-pots in which baby plants are reared, and tough palm-leaves 
 supply the tickets on which their names are inscribed. - 
 
 The stems of the male plant are all solid, and, though very light, 
 form a strong prop. They are used in administering corporal 
 punishment — that bamboo backsheish with the promise of which some 
 Europeans in Eastern lands are wont so pleasantly to encourage their 
 servants ! 
 
 (In some countries forest fires have, apparently with good reason, 
 been attributed to the friction of dead clumps of bamboo, ceaselessly 
 rubbing against one another during a strong breeze. Of course the 
 tiniest spark thus kindled would find the most inflammable of fuel in 
 the mass of dry dead leaves, and a single clump would form such a 
 magnificent bonfire as might well start a fearful conflagration.) 
 
 Had these gardens done nothing but naturalise these and many 
 other ornamental trees and shrubs, they would have done good 
 
 ' Hence one form of the diabolic Eastern methods of execution by impahng. 
 The victim was firmly secured in a sitting posture over a vigorous young bamboo, and 
 was there left to perish by its growth. 
 
 - I have already described many of the innumerable uses of the bamboo as food 
 and drink, salve and physic, instruments of music and of war, domestic and agri- 
 cultural, in ' In the Himalayas,' pp. 505-507, Published by Chatto & Windus.
 
 192 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 service to the colony. They render more practical benefit, however, 
 by supplying seeds, plants, and cuttings for gardens in all parts of 
 the Isle, and by the experimental culture of all products likely to 
 prove remunerative in the hands of planters in the various districts, 
 highland or maritime. 
 
 In order to carry out this mission more practically. Government 
 gardens have been established at various altitudes. One here ; a 
 second, as we have seen, within the influence of frosts, on the flanks 
 of Hak-galla beyond Nuwara Eliya ; a third at Henaratgoda ; a 
 fourth in the north-west, in the very dry heat of Anuradhapura, 
 where its existence has only become possible since the restoration of 
 the ancient tanks ; and a fifth at Badulla, in the south-east. These 
 embrace climates so varied that there are few desirable plants which 
 cannot be successfully cultivated in one or the other, and thereafter 
 multiplied for the use of all desirous of varying their investments. 
 
 One charm of these gardens is that all manner of beautiful 
 climbing-plants, trails of the glossy betel-vine, orchids, and pitcher- 
 plants have been encouraged to establish themselves, and so to 
 clothe and veil many of the trees as to do away with all the stiffness 
 one is wont to associate with a botanic garden. Moreover, all 
 harmless living creatures are here protected ; so birds are numerous, 
 especially the flights of bright green parrakeets with scarlet bills, and, 
 alas ! most unmelodious voices. 
 
 Some trees find special favour with the flying-foxes — woulla, as the 
 natives call them — and a whole colony, numbering perhaps from fifty 
 to a hundred, of these strange bird-beasts hang themselves up to the 
 boughs by their hind claws, and there sleep all day, swaying gently 
 in the breeze, and resembling some odd, large, dark-brown fruit. At 
 sunset they awaken, unfold themselves, spread their heavy wings, 
 flap them, raise their heads, finally unhook their hind claws, and fly 
 off on their nocturnal foraging expeditions in search of fruit, fluttering 
 about the fruit-bearing trees in the twilight, to make sure of finding 
 just what they like best for their nocturnal feast. They are endowed 
 with very sharp teeth. They really are hideous large bats, with 
 leathery skin and wings coated with reddish hair, and measuring 
 about four feet from tip to tip of wings. Though always interesting to 
 watch, they are certainly not agreeable to the sense of smell, and 
 the corners habitually haunted by these creatures are decidedly un- 
 pleasant. 
 
 Very different is the fascinating flying squirrel, which is found
 
 KANDV 193 
 
 chiefly in this neighbourhood, from Rambodda to Matele, a soft 
 furry pet, Though larger and softer, it considerably resembles our 
 own as it springs from tree to tree ; but suddenly, when leaping 
 from some high bough, it expands its four legs, which are connected 
 by a fur-covered membrane, and it appears transformed into a flat 
 square of fur, silently floating at will, without any apparent exertion 
 beyond that of a slight depression of the long bushy tail, which acts 
 as a rudder — apparently a delightfully easy mode of travelling. 
 AVhen the creature alights on grass or trees, it folds up the wing-like 
 membrane which lies along either side, and it resumes its appearance 
 as a squirrel. 
 
 As to other squirrels, they are allowed to scamper in peace all 
 over the place, so I suppose they are not so destructive to timber as 
 we find them in Scotland. Active little lizards of various sorts dart 
 in and out of their hiding-places, or bask in the sun ; and sometimes 
 we saw strange creatures of the mantis family, leaf-insects and stick- 
 insects, which we could scarcely believe to be anything but brown 
 or bright-green leaves, or else leafless twigs. Some of these are 
 vegetarians ; but I am sorry to say that the very devout-looking 
 ' prajing mantis,' which uplifts its arms so reverently, as if in prayer, 
 is a very ferocious cannibal, and those arms really act as svvords with 
 which to help its strong jaws in cutting off the heads of its weaker 
 relations. 
 
 Sometimes you may find what look like little seeds, with five or 
 eight sides, adhering to a leaf. These are the eggs of certain of this 
 family, and I suppose they hatch some sort of caterpillar which spins 
 the rough white cocoon from which the mantis eventually comes 
 forth. 
 
 Another curious thing which you may have the luck to find hang- 
 ing from some branch is a little bundle of sticks, from four to six 
 inches long, all laid lengthways like a tiny bundle of firewood. On 
 examination you will find this to be lined with fine spun silk, and 
 you will learn that it is the nest of a moth,' which the Singhalese 
 believe to have once been a human being guilty of stealing wood, 
 and therefore, in the natural course of nature, reborn in this humiliat- 
 ing form, and condemned thus to keep its sin ever in remembrance. 
 In like manner the pretty black bird, with the tuft of white at the 
 end of its long tail feathers, now known as the cotton-thief, is said to 
 have really so sinned in a previous existence. 
 
 ' Of tlie family Euincnida;. 
 
 Q
 
 194 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Indeed, there is nothing animate or inanimate which may not at 
 some time have been a human being, doomed for divers sins to pass 
 through endless transmigrations, so that if you kill a scorpion or a 
 centipede you may possibly be murdering your own grandfather ! The 
 comparative degrees thus represented are certainly not flattering to 
 woman, — for a man to be reborn as a woman is a far deeper humilia- 
 tion than to become a plant or a serpent ! 
 
 But of all forms of transmigration, that most dreaded is to be 
 born again as a dog or a crow, both being addicted to carrion, and 
 therefore abhorred. This objection, however, applies to pigs, leo- 
 pards, buffaloes, and many other animals. 
 
 Among the creatures in whom one would rather not recognise an 
 ancestor are the millepedes, which we constantly saw crawling about 
 in dry places, or lying curled up like a watch-spring. At first sight 
 one is apt to mistake them for some sort of snake, as they are nearly 
 a foot long and as thick as a man's thumb. Happily, however, they 
 are quite harmless, and only bite vegetables. They are of a glossy 
 jet black, one kind being distinguished by a scarlet stripe down the 
 back, but all alike have upwards of a hundred very short bright yellow 
 legs. After a while one learns to look on them without repulsion, 
 which is more than I can say of any of the myriapods, though that 
 family includes not only all manner of hateful centipedes, but also 
 some very useful long-legged creatures ^ which devour woodlice and 
 cockroaches. 
 
 Another most innocent creature, which to a new-comer is some- 
 what startling, is a gigantic earth or rain-worm, thicker than a man's 
 finger, and often upwards of five feet in length. It is of a bluish-grey 
 colour, and as you meet it wriggling along, it naturally inspires some- 
 thing of the instinctive shrinking one feels towards a serpent. But 
 after a while you become interested in this useful fellow-creature, 
 which works so busily turning up the soil and throwing up large 
 mounds of fine mould. It only comes out after rain. 
 
 I fear these allusions may give you a somewhat creepy impression 
 of the beautiful gardens (and indeed in this Eden you must never 
 forget the possible presence of the serpent), so I must just refer to 
 one more attraction, namely, the security in which all manner of birds 
 here build their nests. The daintiest of all is that of the tiny honey- 
 sucker, which is built of moss and wool on the very tip of a branch, 
 where it is rocked by every breath of wind. The opening is covered 
 
 1 Cermatia,
 
 k'ANDY 195 
 
 by a neat diminutive porch, so that the little mother is well protected 
 from any sudden attack. 
 
 Another wise builder is the tailor-bird, which, having built a nest 
 neatly lined with moss and hair, proceeds to make a waterproof cover ; 
 so, using its own slender bill as a needle, it selects a strip of strong 
 bark fibre (when near human homes it sometimes finds a piece of 
 thread or coloured wool !), and therewith stitches together the leaves 
 of the shrub, laying one over the other, as a slater overlaps his slates. 
 This bird lays very peculiar dark-reddish eggs, like polished mahog- 
 any. It is, moreover, musical, and has a pleasant song. 
 
 But perhaps the most ingenious of all nest-builders is the weaver- 
 bird or grossbeak, which weaves a nest of fine grass about two feet 
 in length, and shaped like a chemist's glass retort, with the funnel 
 end downwards. By this long passage the bird enters the pear-shaped 
 nest, wherein the young birds are reared safe from the attacks of 
 snakes and other foes. These delicate structures are suspended from 
 the extreme tip of a branch, so that no enemy can glide up to them, 
 and of course they sway with every breath of air. 
 
 These pretty little birds are as gregarious as rooks ; so if one 
 selects a suitable tree as its home, so many will colonise beside it that 
 the nests might be mistaken for some strange fruit. Thirty or forty 
 nests together form quite a moderate colony, hundreds of nests 
 having sometimes been counted on one tree. 
 
 It is said that the weaver-bird loves to make her home attractive 
 by an illumination of fairy lanterns, which are living fireflies ; and 
 lest they should wander, she fastens them with adhesive clay to the 
 light twigs from which her nest hangs suspended by deftly woven 
 cords. Her mate finds a perch near her, and is said likewise to pro- 
 vide himself with a goodly supply of living candles, on which he 
 doubtless breakfasts when he awakes. 
 
 02
 
 196 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 
 
 Blended faiths — Planet and spirit worship — Hindoo gods and Buddha — The Temple 
 of the Tooth — Oriental library — Tooth on show — Perahara — Originally a Hindoo 
 festival — 3 and 9 — Days of the week — Other teeth — Christian relics. 
 
 Few things appear to me more remarkable — and surely none would 
 more surprise the European admirers of Buddhism — than the very 
 strange manner in which, in most countries where it is practised, it 
 is so amalgamated with the Hindoo mythology which Buddha sought 
 to obliterate, that the practical result of his teaching has been to add 
 one more god — himself — and innumerable objects of worship to those 
 already so numerous. 
 
 In China,' in Siam, and in Ceylon this is specially conspicuous, 
 but in the latter the Hindoo images are sometimes excluded from 
 the interior of the vihara, as Buddha's sanctuary is called. But in 
 any case, they almost invariably occupy a deivale or house of gods in 
 the outer enclosure, where there is also a hall for the kapiias ox dLQ.-s\\- 
 dancers — a very singular compromise between creeds which theoreti- 
 cally are so antagonistic. 
 
 Thus these forms of worship are so curiously blended that the 
 religion of the majority of the Singhalese, though nominally Buddhist, 
 is largely coloured by Hindooism, and still more, whether avowed or 
 only practised in secret, by demon-worship, pure and simple. The 
 extent to which the latter prevails is extraordinary. There is not a 
 village in the most purely Buddhist districts which has not its kattadia 
 or devil-priest, whose office it is to propitiate the innumerable malig- 
 nant demons which are supposed to be accountable for all the evils 
 of every sort which afflict poor human beings. As a minor precaution 
 every small child wears a charm of some sort — very often it wears 
 nothing else ! — and many grown-up folk are similarly guarded. 
 
 A people naturally superstitious find demons and spirits requiring 
 propitiation in every tree and well, in dark river and raging pestilence, 
 in malarious swamp or neglected burial-grounds. Planets also claim 
 worship. The Bali, or planet-worship, is curiously blended with 
 
 ' See ' Wanderings in China,' vol. ii. p. 38. By C. F. Gordon Cumming. William 
 Blackwood & Sons,
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 197 
 
 demon-worship, and astrologers are consulted on every event of 
 life. 
 
 At the birth of every Singhalese baby its horoscope is cast by one 
 of those, and so highly is the document esteemed, that even in the 
 hour of death more reliance is placed upon it than on the symptoms 
 of the patient ! ' Again, the astrologer is called in to preside at baby's 
 'rice-feast,' when some grains of rice are first placed in its mouth. 
 He selects for the little one a name which is compounded from the 
 name of the ruling planet of that moment. This name he tells only 
 to the father, who whispers it low in baby's ear — no one else must 
 know it, and, like the Chinese 'infantile name,' this 'rice-name' is 
 never used lest sorcerers should hear it and be able to work malig- 
 nant spells. 
 
 Thenceforth at every step in life the counsel of the astrologer is 
 sought. He must decide the auspicious moment for the first shaving 
 of baby's head, or in advancing years for the first shaving of the 
 young man's beard ; for starting on a journey, for commencing to 
 build a house. At the Singhalese festival of the New Year, which is 
 in April, the astrologer is ready to give each individual who will pay 
 for them directions how to secure luck for the incoming year. In 
 case of illness he carries far more weight than the doctor. The 
 horoscope of the sufferer is submitted to one of these gentry, who 
 consults his astrolabe, calculates the probable influence of certain 
 planets, and then prescribes the ceremonies or ball to be observed, 
 which include incantations over a clay image representing the planet 
 under which the patient was born. 
 
 'Jlie astrologers are of all castes, from the lowest tom-tom beaters 
 to the highest agricultural aristocracy, and even include many 
 Buddhist priests, although this practice of divination was condemned 
 by Buddha, and is entirely borrowed from the Hindoos. The priests 
 are, however, wise in their generation, and like to reserve so impor- 
 tant a hold on the superstitions of their flock. 
 
 As to the Kattadias, they continue to make a very good profit on 
 other men's labours, for the people do not venture to sow their fields 
 till the village priest has fixed a lucky day, when, having made their 
 offerings at the shrine of Buddha, they tie bunches of wild flowers 
 and cocoa-nut leaflets on sticks, placed at the corners of each field, 
 
 1 In the case of the recent deeply lamented death from hydrophobia of an eminent 
 citizen, it was assumed to the last that the illness could not prove fatal because his 
 horoscope indicated a different cause for death.
 
 198 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 to scare away evil spirits. At harvest, too, the priest must choose a 
 hicky day for beginning work, in return for which he receives offerings 
 of the first-fruits. Sometimes in a corner of the field you may see a 
 small bower decorated with fragrant flowers ; within this is placed a 
 sheaf of grain, together with a palm-leaf, on which the Kattadia has 
 inscribed mystic characters dedicating the sheaf to the guardian spirit 
 of the field. 
 
 An exceedingly singular superstition is prevalent in districts so 
 far apart as Tangalla in the far south and Jaffna in the far north — the 
 former being Singhalese and the latter Tamil — namely, the use of a 
 very peculiar patois, adopted by the villagers only during the most 
 important periods of the paddy cultivation, while sowing, weeding, 
 reaping, and threshing, the object being to deceive the malignant 
 spirits, which are supposed only to understand the language in 
 ordinary use. At the same time, they must be treated with a show 
 of excessive politeness. 
 
 The same custom prevails amongst the numerous agricultural 
 moormen in the eastern province. I quote the following interesting 
 passage from an account of these villagers within twenty years ago, 
 by Mr. Somanader and Mr. A. de Zylva, two of the local Muda- 
 liyars : — 
 
 ' For threshing, Thursdays are considered the best days to commence, and 
 certain charms and ceremonies are performed to keep off puta»is, or devils, from 
 carrying away the fruits of their labour. The charm is called arrakku, which 
 consisted of the following stuffs shut up in a box — viz., silver, copper, iron, coral, 
 pearl, chanks, valampuri (a fruit), chadaimudi (a vegetable), and some arrack in 
 a vial— and buried in the centre of the threshing-floor with margosa-leaves, &c., 
 over which the sheaves are heaped, and the cattle turned on them for threshing. 
 
 ' In addition to these charms and ceremonies to keep off the devil from steal- 
 ing the paddy, they begin to use a peculiar slang to keep the devils ignorant of 
 what is spoken. For instance, the threshing cattle, instead of being termed >/iadu, as 
 usual, go by the name varikkalan, the meaning of which is ' productive-legged ' ; 
 the niarakkal, or the measure, is termed ' accountant ' ; the baskets are called 
 periivayan, or broad-mouthed, and every implement has a different name in the 
 threshing-floor. All expressions that have meanings suggestive of decrease or 
 other ill-omened significations are avoided, and the word 'multiply' is always 
 substituted. For instance, the expression 
 
 Drive the bullocks . . is rendered. Multiply the varikkalan. 
 Sweep the corn ... ,, Multiply the /o/?. 
 
 Bx'mg iht marakkal . ,, Multiply the ' accountant.' 
 
 Fill the basket ... ,, Multiply the ' broad-mouth. ' 
 
 Bring some water . . ,, Multiply some flood.
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 199 
 
 Go home for rice . . is rendered, Multiply home for white. 
 Call him to take this and ) f Multiply him to multiply this and 
 
 deliver it at home j " (to multiply at home. 
 
 tS:c., &c., &c. 
 
 ' In threshing, cattle are driven with a song, the purport of which is to invoke 
 the deities to give them a good produce. ' 
 
 Just as it was in the early days of Christian teaching in Britain, 
 so in Ceylon missionaries may work with comparative success against 
 Buddhist or even Tamil worship, but it seems scarcely possible to 
 eradicate the superstitious dread of demons, and so in the weakness 
 of illness many so far yield to the persuasions of heathen relations 
 as to consult astrologers or admit devil-dancers. Of course in many 
 cases the luckless patient has no voice in the matter. 
 
 But whatever be the illness or calamity in a Singhalese or Tamil 
 home, the devil-priests are sure to be called in, and come escorted 
 by a company of devil-dancers with wild dishevelled hair which is 
 never cut or combed, and wearing hideous masks to represent the 
 devils who arc supposed to have done the mischief. They dance till 
 they are in a state of frenzy, while the Kattadia feigns to be inspired 
 and talks oracularly. An altar is erected, on which are piled flowers 
 and rice, and in some cases of illness a living red cock ' is brought 
 in, to be touched by the patient and then sacrificed, or perhaps 
 merely dedicated to the demon, and given to his priest. 
 
 Among the old customs which still find favour with the natives, 
 notwithstanding the teaching of grave Buddhist priests, are certain 
 'devil- dances,' much practised about the New Year. They answer 
 to our Yule mummers ; but their masquerading is of the simplest 
 sort, as it consists in a total absence of raiment, for which paint is 
 the sole substitute. The naked brown dancers are grotesquely 
 painted from head to foot, generally in stripes. Sometimes they 
 adorn themselves with the horns and tail of some wild beast, and go 
 about in companies, dancing wildly in every village, with an accom- 
 paniment of tom-toms and other instruments of torture to the ear. 
 Such severe exertion entails much drinking of palm toddy ; and 
 when, at sunset, the devil-dancers and their followers retire to the 
 palm groves to spend the night leaping and dancing round their 
 blazing bonfires, the scene is as demoniacal as can well be 
 imagined. 
 
 1 For various instances of the identical sacrifice in Scotland in the present half- 
 century, see ' In the Hebrides,' by C. F. Gordon Gumming, pp. 251, 252. Chatto & 
 Windus.
 
 200 TIFO HAPPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 A very elaborate festival in honour of evil spirits is sometimes 
 held in a district which has been ravaged by cholera or other in- 
 fectious disease. A temporary building of boughs is erected and 
 draped with white cloth and flowers ; an altar is erected, on which 
 offerings are laid, and priests, who have been duly purified and 
 are fasting, sprinkle the worshippers with water tinged with saffron. 
 Then follow incantations, dances and all manner of games, repre- 
 senting the capture of elephants and buffaloes, mat-weaving, &c. 
 These continue through the night, with an accompaniment of tom- 
 tom beating and blazing of resin to symboHse thunder and lightning. 
 Finally, an earthenware vessel is carried to the nearest stream, where 
 it is broken to atoms, and its fragments are thrown into the water. 
 
 The Singhalese especially dread one Yakka {i.e., devil) which is 
 supposed to haunt running water, and to cause much sickness. All 
 those malarial fevers which are so common in the damp jungles, 
 more especially near rivers, are attributed to him. Therefore they 
 strive to propitiate this water-fiend, or river-king, as they call him, 
 by offerings of tiny double-canoes, laden with flowers, rice, and 
 betel, shaded by a canopy of cocoa-palm leaves. After sundry 
 ceremonies, these little barks are launched on the stream ; and in 
 times of general sickness, such offerings are so common that some- 
 times a small flotilla may be seen floating down from beneath the 
 cocoa shade, or stranded on some sandbank in midstream. 
 
 In cases of small-pox the goddess Patine must be propitiated. 
 She is identified with the Hindoo goddess Doorga, by no means 
 a pleasant character. In her honour the Kandians play a game 
 commonly known to the British schoolboy as the tug of war. From 
 among the tough twisted lianas of the forest they cut two tough, strong, 
 crooked pieces, shaped like natural hooks. These they link together, 
 and, having attached to each a long stout cable of rattan cane, also 
 from the jungle, they form themselves into two companies, and, each 
 holding on by the cable, tug with might and main till one of the 
 hooks breaks, when the victors place the conquering hook in a 
 palanquin, and carry it round the village with shouts of triumph. 
 
 It is very necessary for anyone interested in the various ceremonies 
 he may chance to see in Ceylon, to bear in mind this curious blending of 
 faiths supposed to be so entirely antagonistic one to another. Espe- 
 cially is this clue requisite to understand the greatest annual festival 
 of Kandy, known as the Perahara, or Procession, which is generally 
 assumed to be a great Buddhist ceremonial, whereas it is really all in
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 20t 
 
 honour of several Hindoo gods and goddesses, the Buddhist's part 
 being simply the nominal loan of a relic— in truth, the loan of an 
 empty shrine ! 
 
 But seeing that the relic in question claims to be no less a treasure 
 than a veritable tooth of Gautama Buddha, and is the object of 
 unbounded reverence to all the many millions (somewhere about 
 400,000,000) who worship him, and a relic for the possession of 
 which bloody wars have been fought, and incredible sums of money 
 offered, it is perhaps not to be wondered at that the priests take good 
 care to lock it up securely, before allowing its shrine to join in the 
 procession of relics of the Hindoo gods ! 
 
 It is said that Kandy owes its very existence as the mountain 
 capital to the fact of this precious bit of bone having in the course 
 of its wanderings been brought here for safety in the sixteenth 
 century ; for in those days Kandy was a well-nigh inaccessible 
 village, known as Sengada-gala Nuwara — so named from a great rock 
 wh'ch stands in the jungle just above the Old Palace. But when 
 such a treasure as the great dalada came to take up its abode here, 
 its royal guardian was bound to beautify the place so honoured ; and 
 the Dalada Maligawa, the Temple of the Tooth, was year by year 
 enriched by the offerings of the countless throng of pilgrims who 
 braved all the toil and difficulties of the pilgrimage to this mountain 
 fastness in order to do homage to a relic of such inestimable sanctity, 
 and to offer their gifts of gold and silver ornaments, coins, jewels, 
 vestments for the priests, fruit and flowers. 
 
 The latter are at all times a graceful feature in this worship, for 
 as none care to appear empty-handed before the altar of Buddha, to 
 whom even such simple offerings as these are acceptable, there are few 
 in all the throng of worshippers who have not some flowers to offer 
 — often white, pink, blue or yellow lotus, or the graceful grain-like 
 sprays of cocoa or areca palm blossom, almost as large as the little 
 child who often carries it. Many women and children make a living 
 by providing baskets of flowers for sale to those who have come 
 unprovided.' 
 
 (Among the very legendary acts of devotion recorded of the 
 Ninety Kings of the Lion race^for such is the meaning of the word 
 Singhalese — we are told of one who is said to have offered six 
 millions of blossoms in one day to this rapacious tooth. Another 
 daily offered one hundred thousand blossoms all of one sort, and a 
 
 ' See p. 6r, note.
 
 202 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 different flower each day ! After all, it is not incredible that the 
 kings who built the stupendous relic-shrines at Anuradhapura, all by 
 compulsory labour, may by the same means have collected blossoms 
 even by the millions if they so willed.) 
 
 Externally this famous temple is not conspicuous, being within 
 the precincts of the Old Palace, and partly concealed by the 
 Audience Hall and the Pattipuwa, an octagonal building which is 
 now the Oriental Library, but the whole is enclosed by a moat, with 
 the same very ornamental stone wall which surrounds the lake ; and 
 there are always picturesque groups of people passing to and fro, 
 whether of the laity or brethren of the yellow robe. 
 
 Though the latter are happily not so numerous as in the palmy days 
 of Buddhism, when Ceylon supported sixty thousand priests, Kandy is 
 very fully supplied, having two ecclesiastical colleges, the Malwatta 
 and Asgiriya Viharas, both of the Siamese sect — the sect which 
 incorporates so much Hindooism, but whose distinguishing charac- 
 teristic to the casual observer is that of always wearing the yellow 
 robe so as to leave one shoulder bare.' From an artistic point of 
 view, I am bound to say that these stately brown beings draped in 
 saffron colour, and sometimes escorted by an attendant bearing a 
 yellow silk umbrella, or a large palm-leaf fan, form very harmonious 
 bits of colour wherever one meets them. 
 
 (The symbolic honour implied by the umbrella used to be very 
 real in Ceylon, when the Buddhist priests shared with the monarch 
 alone the privilege of having an unfolded Talipot palm-leaf held 
 over them, with the broad end forward. Ordinary mortals must carry 
 the narrow stalk end foremost, and in presence of a superior must 
 even turn that aside, so as to expose their head to the sun ! Priests 
 were further honoured by having their seats covered with white cloth. 
 Sometimes a white or yellow canopy is borne by four men, so as to 
 overshadow the priest. Amongst the gifts sent by the King of 
 Cambodia in 1884 to the Buddhist College of Maligakanda, in 
 Colombo, were a brush made of his own hair, to be used in sweeping 
 the place where the image of Buddha is kept, and also an umbrella 
 ornamented with precious stones. Silver umbrellas figure conspicu- 
 ously within the Temple of the Tooth.) 
 
 To return thither. The architecture is not easy to describe. The 
 chief characteristics are the low square-cut pillars, the lavish display 
 of grotesque carving and mythological frescoes painted on the walls. 
 
 1 See p. 59.
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 203 
 
 At the lower portal we stepped over a beautifully sculptured semi- 
 circular stone, and then passing between two wonderful stone beasts 
 and four really splendid elephants' tusks (of a size very rare in 
 Ceylon), we entered the outer temple, where there are various objects 
 of interest, — gaudily painted images of Buddha, gigantic drums and 
 tom-toms, rich draperies, curious great honorific sunshades, ik.c. 
 Thanks to an influential friend, we were shown many strange jewels 
 and costly offerings sent to the Tooth by many Buddhist kings ; but 
 as to the Tooth itself, we were told there was no possibility of our 
 being allowed to see it, as the dagoba containing it could only be 
 taken from its inner shrine once a year, at the time of the great Pera- 
 hara, and even then the Tooth was not visible, such a privilege as an 
 actual sight of it being reserved for very special occasions, such as might 
 not occur for years. 
 
 When Major Forbes-Leslie had the good fortune to witness an 
 exhibition of the Tooth in May 1828 (when it was exhibited by 
 order of Sir Edward Barnes), fifty-three years had elapsed since 
 it had been openly displayed by King Kirti Sri, and of course com- 
 paratively few people had ever since beheld this object of deepest 
 veneration. 
 
 After it was captured by the British it was, as a matter of political 
 expediency, retained for many years in custody of the Government, 
 and the people firmly believed that its possession conferred the right 
 of sovereignty. 
 
 The exhibition of 1828, which was accompanied with all possible 
 ceremonial, was freely criticised, as it was obvious to all that the 
 Buddhist relic was being used as the political tool of a Christian 
 Government, and it was stated that many forced worshippers were 
 drawn to its shrineby worldly interest, rather than by any superstitious 
 reverence for the relic. 
 
 All writers on Ceylon in the first half of the century agree in saying, 
 that so low had Buddhism fallen in the estimation of the people, that 
 it was in a fair way to die out altogether. Of course, therefore, the 
 priests clung to this State protection, and were bitterly opposed to its 
 withdrawal, when, in 1853, the relic was finally made over to their 
 care, and all outward union of ' Tooth and State ' ceased. Naturally 
 they do their best, with jealous care, to foster the mystery and rever- 
 ence with which it is guarded. 
 
 Now, to be at Kandy and not to see the famous Tooth was 
 inexpressibly trying ; and though kind friends strove to comfort me
 
 204 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 by showing me many treasures, including exceedingly valuable ancient 
 books in the Oriental Library, I was inconsolable. 
 
 Those, however, were really of very great interest, some being 
 quite unique manuscripts of very great antiquity, and all written, or 
 rather scratched, with styles on long narrow strips of carefully prepared 
 palm-leaf, generally about two and a half inches wide, and sometimes 
 twenty inches long. Each leaf, when written, was smeared with dark 
 oil, coloured with charred gum, which blackened the indented letters 
 and has preserved the leaves {olas is the right word) from attacks of 
 insects. All the leaves, forming a book, are placed between two neat 
 wooden boards, some of which are elaborately painted, others em- 
 bossed with precious metal, and even gems : the whole are pierced 
 with two holes, and strung together by cords. 
 
 These ancient books are written in Pali and Sanskrit, classic sisters 
 alike descended from a long-forgotten Aryan mother-tongue, and 
 which respectively enshrine the most widespread Oriental faiths. The 
 study of these dead tongues, especially Pali, is in Ceylon confined 
 almost entirely to the priests, who are supposed to master them before 
 their ordination ; but it is said that, as a matter of fact, few do so — 
 and no wonder! Pali, which is exceedingly difficult, \% par excellence 
 the sacred tongue of Buddhism, being that in which Gautama Buddha 
 preached. Even Elu, or High Singhalese, which is the language of 
 literature, differs so greatly from the colloquial, that it is quite a study 
 in itself, just as, in China, mandarin Chinese differs from that of the 
 provinces. 
 
 The great historical record of Ceylon, the Maha-wanso, to which 
 one hears such frequent reference, is in Pali. 
 
 European students of Oriental learning are specially indebted to 
 two Wesleyan missionaries for first unlocking these stores of long 
 sealed-up knowledge, and their translations of Buddhist sacred books 
 have proved precious to a multitude of less erudite writers, including 
 some whose sole object is the exaltation of that system against which 
 these scholars toiled so earnestly. These honoured workers were 
 the Rev, J. Gogerly and the Rev. Richard Spence Hardy. 
 
 They were led to undertake this task owing to the fact that so 
 soon as the priests of Buddha realisefi that the new preachers of 
 Christianity were no longer satisfied with a merely nominal profession 
 of the foreign creed in order to obtain Government employment, but 
 insisted on a radical conversion, they roused themselves to resist their 
 progress by violently antagonistic preaching from village to village.
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 205 
 
 To meet these opponents on their own ground, it was necessary 
 for the missionaries to acquire as intimate a knowledge as possible of 
 the very voluminous sacred books. During forty-four years of mission 
 life, Mr. Gogcrly toiled at this labour of love, producing his first book 
 on the subject in 1848, and persevering till his death in 1862. His 
 friend Mr. Spence Hardy tells how year after year found him with 
 some learned priest by his side poring over these strips of ancient palm- 
 leaf, and puzzling his companion by the subtle questions he asked, and 
 the doubts he raised relative to points which had never before been 
 disputed. 
 
 When he first propounded his discoveries as to the real doctrines 
 of primitive Buddhism, he was assailed by nearly every Pali scholar 
 in the island, and his conclusions totally denied. But he calmly 
 defended his position, and by numerous quotations from their most 
 authoritative writings, this solitary Western student was able to lead 
 these, the most profound expositors of Buddhism, into its deepest 
 mysteries, and prove that they were utterly wrong in their estimate of 
 its most essential principles. 
 
 So wrote Mr. Spence Hardy, who carried on his share of the same 
 work till, in 1865, he returned to England, not only leaving behind him 
 a reputation for profound scholarly learning, but having awakened the 
 more thoughtful Buddhists to perceive their manifold departures from 
 the very law for which they profess such reverence. His works on 
 ' Eastern Monachism,' and his 'Manual of Buddhism,' published in 
 1850 and 1853, were among the first to awaken the interest of English 
 readers in the faith of 470,000,000 of their fellow-men. 
 
 Some notion of the literary labour represented by those books 
 may be formed from his list of authorities, consisting of 467 works, 
 of which 237 are in Pali, 80 in Sanskrit, and 150 in Elu (/>., written 
 Singhalese), all of which were collected by himself in Buddhist 
 monasteries ; some of the latter are so voluminous, that one alone 
 fills two thousand palm-leaves, each twenty-nine inches long, and 
 inscribed with nine lines of verse. As to the sacred writings in Pali, 
 one of the most celebrated contains 592,000 stanzas, and another 
 (which is known to be thirteen hundred years old) contains 361,550 
 more, so that the study of these brittle palm-leaf pages— dimly 
 inscribed with such intricate characters — must indeed have proved 
 a toilsome task, suggestive of strained and aching eyes. 
 
 Well it is for students that Buddhistic literature in Ceylon was so 
 effectually thinned by ruthless Malabar conquerors in their various
 
 2o6 TJFO 1 1 ATP Y YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 raids, — by none so resolutely as by Rajah Singha, who about a.d. 1590 
 became a convert to Brahmanism, and in his zeal for that religion, 
 sought to destroy all Buddhist books, and delighted in collecting 
 heaps as high as a cocoa-palm and burning them. 
 
 Besides the sacred and historical writings, the monastic libraries 
 contain a multitude of works on astronomy, physics and mathematics ; 
 a curious detail being the extraordinary number of grammars, almost 
 all of which are written in rhyme. 
 
 After all, fortune favoured me in my ecclesiastical sight-seeing, for 
 on my return to Kandy in the month of February, after a pilgrimage 
 to the Holy Footprint on the summit of Adam's Peak, I found to my 
 unbounded satisfaction that the authorities of the great temple had 
 resolved to raise money for its repair by a real exhibition of the Holy 
 Tooth, instead of merely lending its dagoba to be carried in procession. 
 So it had been disentombed from its guarded shrine, and was actually 
 on show ! The town was swarming with pilgrims in their gayest 
 holiday attire, assembling from every corner of the country to gaze on 
 the precious relic, and pay their offerings into its treasury. 
 
 Within the temple the scene was striking in the extreme, both as 
 regarded its human interest and as an artistic study of rich colouring. 
 For crowds of most reverent worshippers, men, women, and children, 
 almost all bringing flowers as well as more enduring gifts of jewels, 
 money, and pieces of silk, were all pressing towards the farther end of 
 the temple, which was now arranged as a sort of chancel, hung with 
 rich draperies and curtains which could be drawn at will, and there, 
 on a slightly raised platform, were grouped a phalanx of brown- 
 shouldered yellow-robed priests of all sizes and ages, from those who 
 might have been grey-headed had they not been so closely shaven, 
 down to quite small boys. With them stood the great laymen 
 associated with them in the charge of the temple and its property, 
 all in the rich dresses of Kandyan nobles, with the large-sleeved 
 jacket and jewelled hat. The greatest of them was dressed in the 
 same style, but his clothes were white and gold. 
 
 All these were grouped around a temporary altar — really a silver 
 table supposed to represent a lake on which the golden lotus floats. 
 Thereon stood an octagonal cupola of solid silver and gold, supported 
 by slender pillars. In front of this were three miniature crystal 
 dagobas or bell-shaped relic shrines, each resting on a square base, 
 and two golden candlesticks with lighted candles. In the small
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 
 
 207
 
 2o8 T1I'() HAPPY VPIARS IX CEYLON 
 
 dagobas on cither side were displayed priceless jewelled objects — 
 royal gifts. 
 
 But all eyes were riveted on the central shrine, of purest crystal, 
 within which lay a large golden lotus-blossom, from the heart of which, 
 upheld by a twist of gold wire, was upraised the worshipful piece of 
 yellow ivory which, to the unquestioning eye of faith, actually passes 
 for a human tooth ! 
 
 I can only say that it is well in keeping with the gigantic footprint 
 on the summit of Adam's Peak, being nearly two inches long and as 
 thick as my first finger. On previous page is an exact portrait of it, 
 which I secured by returning in the stream of pilgrims day after day, and 
 making a pencil sketch the next moment on a scrap of paper in the 
 palm of my hand, to be corrected again and again till it was perfectly 
 accurate. For to be caught attempting to make a picture of it would 
 be the direst offence in the eyes of the priests. Not many years 
 before, the Emperor of Siam had sent large offerings to this temple, 
 and his ambassadors were accompanied by a Chinese artist, whose 
 sole mission was to procure such a drawing as this that his Majesty, 
 though debarred from making pilgrimage in person to the shrine, 
 might at least be able to realise the exact appearance of the priceless 
 relic. This request was refused with the utmost scorn. Only think 
 what a valuable letter of introduction my sketch might have proved 
 had I chanced to visit Siam ! 
 
 I always found the priests and people alike interested in the 
 progress of all my pictures, but their jealous terror lest I should draw 
 this was extreme ; and when, a few days later, I expressed a wish to 
 sketch the general scene of the interior of the temple during the 
 adoration of the Tooth, their fear lest I should include the relic knew 
 no bounds. Being accompanied by several influential men, and 
 having obtained the consent of the Dewa Nilami, who stood beside 
 me, I was rash enough to begin work quite undisguisedly, sitting on a 
 raised dais in the middle of the temple, and, worst of all, produced 
 my opera-glasses (the never-failing companions of ail my wanderings, 
 and source of endless wonder and delight to many a simple soul in 
 remote regions of the earth). 
 
 This proved too much for the priestly mind. In a moment there 
 was a hubbub of alarm, the curtains were drawn in front of the relic, 
 and a procession of yellow-robed brethren headed by the high priest 
 swept down upon me. The latter deliberately put on his old spec- 
 tacles, and demanded a sight of my work. He rubbed his nose over
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH ^cyC) 
 
 it in vain. Luckily I had not there drawn the actual tootli ; in fact, 
 from where I sat I could not possibly see it, as we all strove to 
 prove to him. But then he maintained that the magic glasses had 
 doubtless revealed it, and he must look through them, which he 
 accordingly did, holding them the wrong way, however, to the quiet 
 amusement of the more enlightened bystanders. Naturally he did 
 not see much. 
 
 Eventually he was in a measure pacified, and allowed himself to 
 be drawn into a conversation (of course through an inter{)reter) con- 
 cerning our mutual pilgrimages to many holy shrines, of which I had 
 happily visited a very great number, in all parts of the island— a fact 
 conferring on me a load of sanctity which, albeit involuntary, made 
 me an object of envy to many of the younger priests. 
 
 They, and even the old priest, were greatly mollified by my 
 l)romising to show them drawings of several of these, which I accord- 
 ingly brought with me on the following day. But from that time I 
 was conscious of a strong terror of my presence within the temple, 
 more especially on the last day of the festival, when, the exhibition 
 of the relic being over, I was happily included in a select party of 
 Europeans, who by special favour were permitted to be present in 
 the innermost shrine upstairs to witness the restoration of the Tooth 
 to its secure prison, which really is an ornamental * safe,' only about 
 twelve feet square, an upper chamber i)rotected by massive doors of 
 richly wrought brass and silver, which are always locked. Over each 
 door is suspended a large silver lotus-blossom, and the room is draped 
 with white and gold brocade and priceless Indian shawls. 
 
 The whole was artificially lighted, and very hot, as well it might 
 be, seeing how many eager spectators as well as guardian priests 
 crowded into that tiny sanctuary, the atmosphere being moreover 
 heavy with the scent of temple flowers. Many ceremonies had to 
 be observed ere the Tooth was safely housed. First it was laid in 
 a case resembling a richly jewelled thimble-case, but, as no human 
 hand might touch the sacred ivory, it received the honours of the 
 white cloth ; in other words, it was tilted off its perch above the 
 golden lotus on to a fair linen cloth, from which it was dexterously 
 slipped into its case. (I have already mentioned that in Ceylon, as 
 throughout the East, all favoured guests receive ' the honours of the 
 white cloth ' ; that is to say, a linen covering is thrown over the seat 
 prepared for them, and a strip of linen — probably the spare garments
 
 2IO TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 of some of the bystanders — is laid on the ground, that they may 
 walk over it on first entering a house.) 
 
 The tiny jewelled case was next enclosed in a golden dagoba, 
 encrusted with gems, which was formally locked by one of the chief 
 priests, who retained possession of the key. This was enclosed in a 
 similar relic shrine one size larger, and locked by another priest, who 
 retained that key. Then it was deposited within a third reliquary, 
 and was locked by the Dewa Nilame, the great lay authority of the 
 temple. I regret to say that he who held this office at that time was 
 an apostate from the Christian faith, which he had professed until 
 this honourable (some say lucrative) position devolved upon him, 
 and, Judas-like, he found the care of the bag too much for his 
 principles. 
 
 The several locks being, as we have seen, in the charge of three 
 distinct persons — two priests and a layman — it follows that each must 
 of necessity be present when the relic is displayed, for the greater 
 safety thereof. Thus secured, the triple shrine (together with various 
 priceless offerings, the gifts of divers kings, including many strings 
 of the finest garnets, a tree covered with gold and silver roses, a 
 jewelled bird and crocodile, an image of Buddha carved out of one 
 gigantic emerald about three inches long by two deep, and chains 
 and ornaments without number) was deposited in the Karandua, 
 which is a large dagoba of silver-gilt, five feet in height, and about 
 three feet six inches in diameter — beside which were placed the 
 crystal relic-shrine in which the Tooth appears when on show, and 
 one or two others. I have seen it stated that the inner casket is en- 
 closed in a nest of nine golden dagobas. These may have been 
 added, but I certainly saw only three, as described the following 
 morning in my journal, and also in a letter now beside me. 
 
 All these relic-shrines (like the gigantic dagobas which are 
 scattered all over the island, each containing some saintly fragment) 
 are made in the form of a bell (consequently circular), resting on a 
 square base. Tradition declares that the first ever built was designed 
 to resemble a bubble floating on water. That which contains the 
 Tooth is overshadowed by the sacred umbrella of gold or silver, 
 symbol of sovereignty, while above it hang gold and silver lotus- 
 blossoms and costly silk brocades. 
 
 Finally, the strong iron cage with open bars was locked and sealed 
 with much ceremony by the three great authorities, each with his own 
 signet. Then the metal doors of the inner sanctuary were locked by
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL rOOTH 211 
 
 one of them, and the down-stairs dour by some one else (I think 
 each has two locks !), so all was once more safe, and we adjourned to the 
 balcony of the Octagon Library, thence to witness the start of the great 
 annual Perahara, or procession of elephants, bearing relics from the 
 four principal Hindoo temples, and also from the Delada Maligawa, 
 which contributes its entire stud of elephants to grace a festival of 
 prehistoric origin, but supposed to have been instituted in very 
 ancient days in honour of the birth of Vishnu, in his character of 
 Krishna, the Sun-god. 
 
 Certain it is that this festival was celebrated annually for many 
 centuries before the Buddhists recognised it in any way ; and it was 
 not till the year 1775 that it was deemed expedient to incorporate 
 it as a Buddhist festival, and King Kirti Sri assigned the place of 
 honour in the Hindoo procession to the Holy Tooth. 
 
 This innovation was quite a sudden thought. The king had 
 invited certain Siamese priests to Ceylon to restore the highest order 
 of the Buddhist priesthood — the Upasampadawa — and these hearing 
 the noisy preparations for the Perahara, and learning that it was a 
 festival solely in honour of Hindoo gods, took umbrage thereat, 
 whereupon the king commanded that that very evening the shrine 
 should be carried at the head of the procession in his own howdah, 
 and that thus the ceremony would be in honour of Buddha as well as 
 of the gods. 
 
 This amalgamation was no novelty — for so early as a.d. 413, 
 when Fa Hian, the Chinese traveller, visited the kingdom of Khotan, 
 he there saw a procession in which the image of Buddha was carried 
 in company with those of the Hindoo gods Indra ^ and Brahma, and 
 of the Toegri of the Moguls and the Lha of the Thibetans. These 
 images were set in a great four-wheeled car with silken curtains, 
 forming a pavilion eighteen feet in height. This was drawn round 
 the city, all the streets having been swept and watered, and the houses 
 decorated with tapestry and banners in token of rejoicing. 
 
 Again, in Central India, he witnessed a great night festival, when 
 
 ' Buddha ought surely to be on the best of terms with Indra ; for it is recorded in 
 the Jataka, No. 316, that in one of his many transmigrations Buddha had been born 
 as a hare, which, beholding a starving Brahman, tried to roast itself, that the Brahman 
 might eat and live. But the Brahman really was the great god Indra, who, to reward 
 the wise hare, promised that its good deed should be made known through all ages. 
 He, therefore, squeezed the Himalayas, and with their essence he drew on the face of 
 the moon the figure of a hare, whence, in Hindoo works, the moon is often described 
 as being hare-marked. 
 
 P 2
 
 212 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 the city was illuminated, and there were theatrical representations 
 and wrestling-matches in honour of Buddha and the other worshipful 
 gods and heroes, whose images were placed on no less than twenty 
 highly decorated cars. That was a Perahara on a very grand scale. 
 
 So now the supposed relic of Buddha shares the homage which 
 previously was bestowed only on the (equally authentic) bows and 
 arrows of the gods, whom he did his best to discredit, and his priests 
 salve their consciences by taking no part in the procession, beyond 
 lending the temple elephants and the shrine purporting to contain the 
 Tooth, together with its octagonal canopy of silver-gilt. 
 
 These we saw placed with great ceremony on the back of the 
 largest and most richly caparisoned elephant, the whole being over- 
 shadowed by a rich canopy raised on high poles, carried by six men 
 on foot. The great elephant was escorted by two lesser elephants, 
 one on each side of him. On these were mounted several headmen 
 clothed in white, and bearing baskets of flowers, which from time to 
 time they threw towards the empty shrine. Behind them sat 
 attendants holding gold and silver umbrellas of state. 
 
 Other headmen in gorgeous dresses followed on foot, and the 
 people bowed down in lowly reverence. Their attitude of worship is 
 to bend the body forward at right angles from the waist, the arms 
 being thrown forward and slightly raised and the tips of the fingers 
 touching. All shout Saadu ! which is the equivalent of All hail ! the 
 multitude of voices blending in a deep solemn wave of sound. 
 
 To us who had just witnessed the scene in the inner sanctuary, 
 this procession was of course a supreme farce ; nevertheless it was 
 picturesque and barbaric, as we witnessed it in the moonlight, amid 
 glare of torches, beating of tom-toms, the clanging of brass cymbals, the 
 shriek of shrill pipes, blowing of chank- shells, and contortions of 
 masked devil-dancers, posturing and dancing frantically to the noise 
 of these ear-torturing instruments — truly devil music ! — and escorted 
 by a crowd of people fantastically dressed up. Were it not for the 
 dreadful music, there is something very eerie in the silent march of 
 such a procession, owing to the singularly noiseless tread of the ele- 
 phants and the barefooted crowds. 
 
 As to the surprising get-up of the devil-dancers in their truly 
 hideous masks, words fail to convey any idea of it, and a group of 
 elephants in full-dress is always impressive. Like the very stout lady 
 whom Dickens describes as affording such a magnificent expanse for 
 the display of costly jewels, these majestic beasts do offer a large field
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 213 
 
 for decoration, of which the Oriental mind fully avails itself in the use 
 of gorgeous trappings and howdahs, richly embroidered cloths quite 
 covering the huge body and head, and partly covering the trunk. On 
 the face-cloth of the three elephants specially devoted to the Tooth is 
 embroidered an image of Buddha enthroned. The whole is resplen- 
 dent with gold, and silver, and jewels, the tusks of the principal 
 elephants being also decorated. 
 
 After the elephants belonging to the Delada — i.e. the Tooth- 
 followed those of the Hindoo temples, also in trios, each elephant 
 bearing a sacred relic being escorted by two attendant elephants. 
 Other elephants, forming a double line from the temple gate, knelt 
 down, that the procession might pass between them, ere starting to 
 make the round of the city. 
 
 Of course every such scene includes a multitude of details to attract 
 the eye, which it would only be wearisome to describe, — suffice it to 
 say that, though the Perahara of the present day is said to be a far 
 less imposing show than it was a hundred years ago, it is still very 
 well worth seeing. Of course, however, its chief interest lies in its 
 antiquity. 
 
 It can be traced as far back as the second century of the Christian 
 era, when Gajabahu returned from a campaign in Southern India, 
 bringing with him a multitude of rescued Singhalese and Tamil cap- 
 tives who had been carried off from Ceylon by the Malabars in a 
 previous invasion of the Isle. He also recovered the sacred vessels of 
 four dewales (temples), and the refection dish of Buddha, which had 
 been carried away about 90 B.C. To celebrate the return of these 
 treasures, on which the heathen used to swear in the Courts of Justice 
 a great Perahara was held, and, except during certain times of war and 
 anarchy, it has been held annually ever since. But it is probable that it 
 really represents a midsummer festival of far more remote origin. 
 
 It is, however, a very movable feast, Forbes-Leslie having wit- 
 nessed it in 1828 in the month of May, and the Rev. R. S. Hardy in 
 1834 saw it in August, in which month it was celebrated in 1888 and 
 1891, while June or July is more frequent. It begins on the day of 
 the new moon in the month of asala, but from the imperfection of 
 native astronomy this date may vary exceedingly. 
 
 Probably the earliest record by an eyewitness which we have of 
 his festival is that given by Knox, who during his twenty years as a 
 captive at large in Kandy, from a.d. 1659 to 1680, had ample oppor- 
 tunities of observing all native customs and ceremonies. He speaks
 
 214 TIVO HAPPY YPIARS IN CFA'LON 
 
 of it as relating solely to ' the gods that govern the earth,' ' the Bud- 
 dou ' having no part in it. The streets were decorated with upright 
 poles from which floated flags and pennons, and between these poles 
 hung fringes of cocoa-palm leaves ; and there were lighted lamps 
 all along both sides of the street both by day and night. These very 
 primitive lamps consisted of cocoa-nut shells filled with their own oil, 
 and a wick floating in it. These were stuck on low posts — frequently 
 banana stems — all along the road. 
 
 The procession was headed by forty or fifty elephants, with brass 
 bells hanging on each side of them, which tinkled as they marched. 
 Next followed men dressed up like giants, and after them a great 
 multitude of drummers, trumpeters, and pipers : each chief brought 
 his own company of awful musicians, and picturesque attendants 
 bearing great palm-leaf fans and flat-topped state umbrellas. Then 
 several companies of the women engaged in the service of the temple 
 as washerwomen, and potters, and other trades, walking three and three 
 ill a row, holdi?ig one another by the hand. Between each company 
 went dancers and musicians. Then followed the men of the washer 
 caste carrying painted sticks, and those of the potter caste carrying 
 cocoa-nut blossoms in earthen vessels. Next came three elephants, 
 on each of which were mounted two priests, one to represent the god 
 of one of the three chief temples, and the second holding his honorific 
 sunshade. The central elephant marched slightly in advance of the 
 other two, and was covered with white cloth, his rider a priest repre- 
 senting the Creator of Heaven and Earth, bearing a painted stick 
 partly wrapped in silk brocade, and from which hung strings of flowers, 
 supposed to be the wonder-working rod that was carried by the con- 
 queror Gajabahu. Before this stick the people bowed down and 
 worshipped, and so great was its sanctity, that a cloth was tied round 
 the mouth of the priest lest he should breathe upon it, and so 
 defile it. 
 
 After these gods and their attendants followed several thousands 
 of the highest ladies in the land, walking hand in hand, three in a row, 
 and dressed 'in the bravest manner that their ability can afford.' 
 
 Finally came a military escort sent by the king, and in this man- 
 ner they daily marched round about the city once by day and once by 
 night, from the new moon until the full moon either in June or July, 
 every year. 
 
 'Two or three days before the full moon, each of these gods hath 
 a palanquin carried after them, ... in the which there are several
 
 THE IVORS HI PFl'L TOOTH 215 
 
 pieces of their superstitious relics, and a silver pot, which, just at the 
 hour of full moon, they ride out into a river and dip full of water, 
 which is carried back with them into the temple, where it is kept till 
 the year after, and then flung away, and so the ceremony is ended for 
 that year. 
 
 ' The greatest solemnity is performed in the city of Kandy, but, at 
 the same time, the like festival or perahar is observed in divers other 
 cities and towns of the land.' 
 
 An exceedingly interesting report was drawn up for Sir Robert 
 Brownrigg, who was the Governor of Ceylon in 181 7, by the Dessawe 
 of ^Vellasse, in which he says that Perahara is a very ancient ceremony 
 in commemoration of the birth of the god Vishnu, or, as it is stated in 
 some sacred books, in remembrance of his victory over the Assureyas 
 or enemies of the gods. 
 
 The mystic ceremonies begin as soon as the new moon is visible, 
 either in the morning or evening, but on no account at mid-day. 
 The Kapuralas or priests of the four principal dewales in Kandy — 
 namely, the Maha or great temple of Vishnu, and those of Nata, 
 Kataragama, and Pattini — have previously secured four logs of sacred 
 wood from the stem of a young jak-tree not yet in fruit, and not more 
 than three spans in circumference. They first clear the ground round 
 the tree, and consecrate it by fumigating it with the smoke of burning 
 resin, smearing it with a preparation of sandal- wood made for the 
 purpose, and further by an offering of a lighted lamp tvith ?ihie wicks 
 (which is put at the foot of the tree), and oinine betel-leaves, and nine 
 different kinds of flowers arranged on a chair. 
 
 This being done the wood-cutter of the Maha dewale, dressed in 
 a clean cloth, and purified by washing and rubbing himself with 
 lemon-juice, fells the tree at its root with an axe, and cuts the trunk 
 transversely into four pieces of equal length, to be divided among the 
 four dewales, the lowest piece being the property of the Nata dewale, the 
 next of Maha dewale, the next of the Kataragama dewale, and the top 
 piece that of the Pattini dewale. Each log is carried (under a white 
 canopy) to its respective dewale, accompanied with beating of 
 tom-toms. 
 
 On the day of the new moon each piece is fixed into the ground 
 in a particular spot in each of the dewales. A roof is erected over it, 
 and it is covered with cloth to keep it concealed, and decorated all 
 round with white olas, fruits and flowers. Thus prepared and fixed 
 the logs are called kap (which signifies pillars), and till the fourth day,
 
 2i6 Tiro iiArrv years in ceylon 
 
 from that on which these are fixed, the Kapuralas every morning and 
 evening carry round the kap the bow and arrows of the gods to whom 
 the temples are consecrated. Carrying the bow and arrows is called 
 carrying the god, and this procession is confined to the precincts of 
 the temi)le. On the fifth day of Perahara, the Kapurale of each temple 
 brings forth the bow and arrow which are the visible symbol of his god, 
 and places them in the Ranhiligay (? howdah) on the back of an 
 elephant. The four elephants thus honoured, each escorted by two 
 attendant elephants with umbrella-bearers, are led to the Adahana 
 Maluwa, a consecrated place near the tombs of the ancient kings. 
 
 (Forbes says the Maluwa was a kind of sanctuary : it was encircled 
 by stones, within which, it is said, the kings had no jurisdiction.) 
 
 Thence, after making the circuit of the Nata dewale, the proces- 
 sion proceeded to the Delada Maligawa, the Temple of the Tooth, to 
 the gate of which the Buddhist priests bring forth the shrine purport- 
 ing to contain the Tooth, which is also placed in the Ranhiligay on the 
 back of an elephant, and takes its place in the evening procession. 
 But in the nocturnal procession at the seventh hour of the night 
 it is not permitted to appear, except on the night of the full 
 moon. 
 
 During these five days the five temples represented take precedence 
 by turns. 
 
 The report then goes on to tell how on the sixth day a new feature 
 was introduced. From each temple was brought forth a randoelie or 
 palanquin containing a golden pitcher and a s\vord, each dedicated to 
 a different goddess. For the next five evenings these were carried 
 after the bows and arrows, and in every nocturnal procession they 
 took the lead. All the women attended as of old, and the young wives 
 and daughters of the chiefs accompanied each randoelie by turns. 
 
 On the fifteenth night, which w\as that of the full moon, at the 
 close of the procession, the shrine of the Tooth was deposited for 
 the night in charge of the Buddhist priests at the Gedige — i.e., Asgiriya 
 Vihara. But the priests and all the properties of the four dewales 
 returned to their several temples, where curry and rice were offered 
 to the gods, and doubtless enjoyed by the hungry human beings, 
 who, thus refreshed, started again in procession with their bows and 
 arrows, swords and golden water- vessels, and journeyed to the banks 
 of the Maha-veUi river near Peradeniya. 
 
 There they found a richly decorated boat, in which embarked the 
 four priests bearing the four swords of the goddesses, attended by
 
 J- s
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 217 
 
 four assistants bearing the golden water-vessels containing the water 
 drawn just a year before. They rowed some distance up the river, 
 and taking up a position in mid-stream, they there awaited the first 
 streak of dawn, when suddenly the four Kapuralas struck the water 
 with their swords, describing a magic circle in honour of the sun, 
 and at the same instant their assistants emptied the water-vessels, 
 and refilled them from within the circle where the swords had cut 
 the waters.' 
 
 Returning to land, and having replaced the swords and water- 
 vessels in the palanquins, they marched back to the city (being met 
 on the road by any chiefs who had been unable to attend in the 
 night), and went straight to the Asgiriya Vihara, where the shrine of 
 the Tooth'again joined the procession, which then returned to the 
 Adahana Maluwa, whence it had started. It then dispersed, each 
 party returning to its own temple. On that day four bundles of fine 
 cloth, four pieces of sandal-wood, together with gold and silver coins, 
 were given to the four dewales from the king's treasury. 
 
 During the next seven days the Wali-yakon was danced in the 
 four dewales by people belonging to the caste of tom-tom beaters. 
 The dancers wore hideous masks, and they danced to the sound of 
 tom-toms. The dancers of each dewale have certain distinctive 
 characteristics ; some jump and leap and turn somersaults, and twirl 
 round till the spectators are giddy. Some wear strings of little 
 jingling bells and bangles on neck, wrists, and arms ; others beat 
 cymbals and hollow metal rings. 
 
 Then for seven days more, people of the Balibat caste danced 
 round heaps of boiled rice, curries, cakes, and fruits, which they sub- 
 sequently consumed ; and when these fourteen days of religious 
 dancing were over, the four pillars of jak-wood which had been 
 fixed in the four dewales were removed, and, amid much beating of 
 tom-toms and waving of flags, were carried to the river and thrown 
 therein. 
 
 Then once more the shrine of the Tooth, and the bows and ar- 
 rows of the gods, were brought forth for a final procession ; and thus, 
 on the morning of the thirty-first day, this prolonged and noisy fes- 
 tival was brought to a close. 
 
 1 Could there be any connection between the Goddess of the Nata Dewale, whose 
 sword cut the bright waters, and the Celtic Goddess of Waters, Nait or Annait, 
 whose worship can still be traced in our Northern Isles? See ' In the Hebrides,' by 
 C, F. Gordon Cumming, p. 205. Published by Chatto & Windus.
 
 2i8 TWO JIAPPV YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 (Surely to the people accustomed to such services there must be 
 peculiar force in the Singhalese translation of our Lord's saying that 
 * The kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation,' — ' not with 
 Pcrahara,' says the Singhalese version.) 
 
 All the main features of this festival are still annually observed, 
 such as the kap hitawima — i.e.^ the division of the young jak-tree 
 into the four logs — and the cutting of the waters, but the various 
 companies of women have ceased to appear in the processions. Some 
 new features have, however, been introduced, such as the appearance 
 of young men in the attire of dancing-girls, their arms and legs 
 covered with little bells. Vast crowds from the surrounding country 
 flock to Kandy to witness the various processions, especially that re- 
 turning from the river after the cutting of the waters, and the scene 
 is very striking as seen in the bright morning sun, beneath a clear, 
 blue sky, with so many thousand picturesque people dressed either 
 in white or in gay colours, many carrying umbrellas of all hues, form- 
 ing a brilliant foreground to the richly wooded hills which embosom 
 the city. 
 
 To students of world-wide superstitions,' several of these details 
 are suggestive, such as the recurrence of the numbers 3 and 9 
 — the women three abreast, the temple elephants likewise, each ele- 
 phant bearing a relic being escorted by one on either side. Then 
 
 1 In Scotland, where the ancient worship of sun, moon, and planets was once as 
 prevalent as in Ceylon, it may still be traced in modern witchcraft, in the reverence 
 for tides, sunwise circles, and these mystic numbers. I have given various examples 
 of these in ' In the Hebrides.' On p. 257 will be found a modern charm to secure 
 abundant milk. A certain flower must be gathered during the flow of the tide, waved 
 thrice in a sunwise circle above the milk-pail, beneath which it is then placed, while 
 chanting an incantation to secure the nine blessings. 
 
 Amongst the trials for witchcraft in 1607, I find Bartie Paterson, teacher in New- 
 battle, accused of having cured a man by visiting him on 3 nights, and each night 
 asking his health thrice 9 times of all living wichts, in the name of Jesus. He also 
 gave him a charm composed of 9 pickles of wheat and 9 pieces of rowan-tree, to be 
 worn continually. 
 
 He was also charged with having cured his ain bairn by washing it thrice at every 
 corner of the Dow Loch beside Drumlanrig, and further with administering water 
 from this loch to a sick man, causing him to lift the water-stoup thrice 9 times in the 
 name of the Most Holy Trinity. 
 
 For these oftences he was sentenced to be strangled at the stake, his body to be 
 burnt, and his goods and gear escheat to the king. 
 
 In 1623, Isobel Haldane, suspect of witchcraft, being summoned before the 
 Presbytery of Perth, confessed to having made 3 large circular cakes, each composed 
 of 9 handfuls of meal gotten from 9 married maidens, and had healed sick children 
 by passing them 3 times through the circular cakes to women who were on the other 
 side of the cakes, who then put the children 3 times backward through the cakes, each 
 time invoking the name of the Holy Trinity.
 
 THE WORSlIirFVI. TOOTH 
 
 219 
 
 3 times 3 comes in with the lamp having 9 wicks, and the offering 
 of 9 betel-leaves and 9 kinds of flowers. 
 
 Knowing what a hold Bali or planet-worship still has over the 
 Ceylonese, whether Buddhist or Tamils, who naturally worship the 
 Hindoo gods, it is interesting to know that the amulet most highly 
 valued by all is one composed of 9 precious stones, — one to re- 
 present each of the seven planets, while the moon has two extra to 
 symbolise its changes. 
 
 The amulet as worn by the Buddhists of Ceylon and Burmah is 
 as follows ; A sapphire represents Saturn ; a topaz, Jupiter ; coral, 
 Mars ; a diamond, Venus ; an emerald. Mercury ; a moonstone, the 
 waxing Moon ; a pearl, the full Moon ; a cat's eye, the waning Moon. 
 These are set round a central ruby, which symbolises the Sun. 
 
 In India the stones composing the amulet of the Nava Ratna, or 
 9 years, vary in different provinces. 
 
 A very remarkable instance of the reverence for the mystic 9 was 
 the magnificent Brazen Temple of Anuradhapura, which was nine 
 storeys high. 
 
 As regards planet-worship, it has been pointed out as a strange 
 coincidence that, in the division of the week, the Singhalese should 
 not only have retained the seven days, but should actually have 
 named each after the same planet as owned that same day, both 
 amongst the Chaldeans and Egyptians, and also in the Western 
 world. 
 
 In English, four of the days were filched from the planets in 
 honour of the Scandinavian gods Tyr, Wodan, Thor, and Freya, but 
 across the Channel our French neighbours retain the planetary names 
 Mardi, Mercredi, Jeudi, Vendredi. 
 
 
 Days of the Week in Singhalese. 
 
 
 
 Day. 
 
 Planet. 
 
 Planet. 
 
 
 
 
 Day. 
 
 Irida, 
 
 from Irii, 
 
 the Sun, and 
 
 da 
 
 wasa, 
 a clay 
 
 
 = Sunday. 
 
 Hattdiida, 
 
 ,, Chanduya, 
 
 the Moon, . 
 
 
 
 
 = Monday. 
 
 Angaha7-ifwada 
 
 ,\ ,, Angaliaruwa 
 
 Mars, 
 
 
 
 
 = Tuesday. 
 
 Badadada, 
 
 „ Buda, 
 
 Mercury, 
 
 
 
 
 = Wednesday. 
 
 Brahaspatinda, 
 
 , , Brahaspati, 
 
 Jupiter, 
 
 
 
 
 = Thursday. 
 
 Sicurada, 
 
 , , Sikura, 
 
 Venus, 
 
 
 
 
 = Friday. 
 
 Senasarada, 
 
 , , Senasura, 
 
 Saturn, 
 
 
 
 
 = Saturday.' 
 
 1 I am indebted for the above to G. W. Mercer, Esq. , of Glen Tulchan, long resi- 
 dent in Ceylon,
 
 220 TWO HAPPY yj'.ARS IN CEYLON 
 
 To return to the illustrious Tooth. Its history enters so largely 
 into that of Ceylon that it is worth a few moments' consideration on 
 that score, to say nothing of its exceeding sanctity in the eyes of so 
 many millions of our fellow-creatures. Its adventures were early 
 recorded in the Deladawanso, a work still extant, written in Elu, and 
 translated into Pali, a.d. 1196. From this, it is said, the story was 
 quoted in the Maha-wanso. 
 
 The original article is supposed to have been one of Buddha's 
 four eye-teeth, rescued from his funeral pyre when he was cremated, 
 B.C. 543, at Kusinaga, about a hundred miles to the north of Benares. 
 Of these four teeth, one is said to have been translated to the Heaven 
 of Indra ; the other three were secured by the king of Kalinga, the 
 king of Gandhara, now Peshawur, and the Naga kings. The two 
 last may perhaps be the ancestors of various other holy teeth which 
 are treasured in various countries, but the second is supposed to be 
 that which is now at Kandy. 
 
 Immediately after Buddha's cremation, it was carried off to the 
 kingdom of Kalinga, south-west of Calcutta, where its sanctity was 
 at once recognised, and it received devout worship. Thence "^or ward 
 the capital was called Danta-poora, the city of the Tooth, and a great 
 festival was annually celebrated in its honour, almost identical with 
 that which is still observed in the same district by the worshippers 
 of Juggernaut. (Kalinga is supposed to be the ancient name for 
 Orissa, and Danta-poora is the modern Puri.) 
 
 All went, on peacefully, till at length one of these Buddhist kings 
 (determined to establish uniformity offaith throughout his dominions) 
 banished all the remaining Brahmins from the land. These fled to 
 the court of a greater king, who dwelt in the north, to whom the 
 kings of Kalinga owed homage. Straightway an army was despatched, 
 with orders to conquer the Buddhist king, and carry off the relic. 
 
 It seems, however, that the invading princes were at once con- 
 verted on beholding the sacred Tooth. They escorted it with all 
 reverence to the Imperial Court, where the wrathful Emperor com- 
 manded its immediate destruction. But vain were all the efforts of 
 the Brahmins to annihilate that precious fragment of ivory. They 
 cast it into the fire, but it re-appeared from amid the flames safely 
 folded within the leaves of an exquisite lotus-flower ; they tried to 
 grind it to powder on an anvil, but the most crushing blows left it 
 safely embedded in the hard iron. Then they made elephants 
 trample upon it, that it might sink into the earth, but once more it
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 221 
 
 rose from its burial, enthroned in the heart of a lotus-blossom, the 
 petals of which were of fine gold, and its heart of silver. 
 
 Still the Brahmins would not acknowledge themselves defeated. 
 They took the wondrous tooth and cast it into the foul sewers of the 
 city. Straightway the sewers disappeared, and in their place there 
 appeared a clear and beautiful lake, whereon floated lilies of many 
 hues, whose fragrance attracted clouds of murmurous bees. This 
 time the Brahmins were silenced, and the Emperor and all his people 
 embraced the faith of Buddha, and paid their adosation to the wonder- 
 working and indestructible relic. 
 
 The Emperor appears to have restored the precious treasure to 
 the safe keeping of the kings of Kalinga, for long afterwards, when 
 the reigning king found himself sorely beset by his foes, he bade his 
 daughter, the Princess of Kalinga, conceal this treasure in the coils 
 of her thick long hair, and make her way to Ceylon. 
 
 This she did a.d. 311, where King Kirti Sri Megahawarna re- 
 ceived it with all possible honour, and built for it a splendid temple 
 at Anuradhapura. It remained in Ceylon till about a.d. 1303, being 
 carried from place to place, as successive kings changed their royal 
 residence ; but wherever it was taken, a splendid temple was erected 
 to its honour Amongst the places thus distinguished were PoUonarua, 
 Hastiselapura, Kataragama, Delgamoa, Kotmalie, Beligala, Damba- 
 deniya, Yapahame, Kurunegala, Kotte, Sitawaka, Delgamuwa, 
 Nilambe, Hanguranketa, Kondesahe, and lastly Kandy. At some of 
 these places ruins of the temples still exist, and I visited several in 
 different parts of the island. 
 
 At length the Malabar conquerors captured this bone of conten- 
 tion and carried it off to Southern India. Thither in 13 19 the King 
 of Ceylon, Prakrama Bahu III., went in person to negotiate its sur- 
 render, and ransomed it for a price beyond telling. Then with much 
 pomp and ceremony he carried it back to the Isle, and all the people 
 rejoiced greatly, and exalted it to double honours. 
 
 Thus it continued to receive the adoration of multitudes until the 
 coming of the Portuguese, who in a.d. 1560 captured it among the 
 spoils of the principal temple at Jaffna, where it was said to have been 
 sent for security. They took it to Goa, and thither the King of Pegu 
 (who, being a devout man of exceeding wealth, had annually sent 
 embassies to do it homage) despatched an ambassador craving per- 
 mission to ransom it at whatever price might be named — offering a 
 very large sum of money in addition to great political advantages.
 
 222 riVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Such an offer was exceedingly tempting, as it was justly urged 
 that the heathen would only manufacture a new tooth were this idol 
 destroyed ; but the influence of the clergy was exerted so powerfully, 
 that even the temptation of gold was withstood, and the ugly little 
 Tooth in its golden setting was brought forth by the clergy in solemn 
 state and placed in a mortar, where, with his own hand, the Arch- 
 bishop, Don Gaspar, bruised it to powder in presence of the Viceroy, 
 and of a great assemblage of clergy and laity. The powder was then 
 burnt in a brazier Avhich stood ready, and the charcoal, with this 
 minute atom of ash, was cast into the river in presence of all the 
 multitude. 
 
 ijut true believers declare that the Holy Tooth was miraculously 
 re-formed in the heart of a lotus blossom, and I suppose they con- 
 sider its increase of bulk to be part of the miracle, for thousands of 
 pilgrims have continued year by year to flock to Ceylon to adore the 
 lump of ivory which the priests substituted for the lost treasure. The 
 marvel is, that they should not have replaced it by a human tooth. 
 Surely such an offering would have been truly acceptable to Buddha ! 
 and they might have cast lots to know which of them might have the 
 privilege of sacrificing one of his own !) 
 
 The Portuguese declare the tooth which they captured to have 
 undoubtedly been that of an ape (possibly shed by Hoonooman, the 
 Monkey-god, himself, and slyly substituted by some Brahmin !) 
 
 Certainly it does seem strange that so precious a treasure should 
 have been sent to a place so remote as Jaffna, in the extreme north 
 of the Isle, whose inhabitants are mostly Tamils and Brahmins. The 
 Singhalese themselves maintain that the real tooth had been sent for 
 safety to Saffragam. However, the tooth captured by the Portuguese 
 had all the credit of being genuine, and the piece of ivory now held 
 in such reverence was not heard of for many a day, and in the mean- 
 time the idea suggested by the Viceroy of Goa, that the destruction 
 of the relic would only lead to the manufacture of another, proved 
 literally true, for in a very short time two spurious teeth appeared in 
 the market ! 
 
 The story of their manufacture was minutely recorded by Diego 
 De Couto, who was intimately acquainted with several witnesses of 
 the various scenes. He tells how in a.d. 1564, Brama, King of 
 Pegu, sent ambassadors to Don Juan, King of Cotta, asking his 
 daughter in marriage (the astrologers having predicted at his birth
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 223 
 
 that he was to marry a princess of Ceylon). It so happened that the 
 King of Cotta had no daughter, l)ut the shipload of rich gifts was 
 irresistible, and as he had brought up in the i)alace a daughter of his 
 great chamberlain, who was of the blood royal, the king agreed with 
 his kinsman that he should pass her off as his own, and send her to 
 be the king's bride. 
 
 They further agreed to have a facsimile of the ape's tooth made 
 of a bit of stag's horn : this was mounted in gold, enclosed in a costly 
 shrine, and conveyed to the house of the chamberlain, who then in 
 strictest confidence disclosed to the ambassadors and their Buddhist 
 priests that the tooth captured by the Portuguese was a fraud, and 
 that the true tooth was concealed in his house. 
 
 Of course they besought permission to see it, which he granted 
 with apparent reluctance, and finally led them disguised by night to 
 a room where the tooth lay on an altar amid incense and lights. 
 There they spent the night prostrate in devout adoration, and after- 
 wards offered an immense sum of money and other costly gifts (in- 
 cluding the annual gift of a ship laden with rice), if only this inestim- 
 able tooth might be sent to the King of Pegu, together with his bride. 
 
 The wily chamberlain decided that two such treasures should go 
 separately ; so the princess was despatched first, and was received 
 with the utmost magnificence, all the people being required to swear 
 allegiance to her as their queen. Ere long the fact that she was really 
 only the daughter of the chamberlain reached the ears of the king, 
 but the damsel had found so great favour in his sight that he ignored 
 the matter, especially as his ambassadors and the priests then took 
 occasion to tell him about the precious tooth, and of their negotia- 
 tions to obtain possession of it. 
 
 'This,' said De Couto, 'excited the desire of King Brama, who 
 reverenced that tooth above everything in life, even as we esteem the 
 tooth of St. Apollojiia (though I shall not say much of the tooth of 
 that sainted lady) more highly than the nail which fastened our 
 Saviour to the Cross. 
 
 Accordingly he at once despatched the priests and ambassadors 
 to Colombo in a vessel laden with costly gifts, to negotiate secretly 
 with the Singhalese king, who with the greatest solemnity and secrecy 
 made over to them this newest fraud in its costly shrine. On its 
 arrival on the shores of Pegu a multitude of priests and people 
 assembled to adore it, and the King Brama despatched all his nobles
 
 224 TIFO HAPPY YEA PS IN CEYLON 
 
 in magnificenlly decorated barges to receive it with due honour, and 
 bring it up the river in state to his royal capital of Rangoon, he him- 
 self going two days' journey in a boat richly decorated with gilding 
 and brocaded silks, to meet the splendid procession. 
 
 'On coming in sight of it,' says De Couto, 'he bathed, sprinkled 
 himself with perfumes, assumed his most costly dress, and on touch- 
 ing the raft which bore tlie tooth, he prostrated himself before it with 
 all the gestures of profound adoration, and on his knees approaching 
 the altar on which rested the shrine, he received the tooth from those 
 who had charge of it, and raising it aloft, placed it on his head many 
 times with adjurations of awe ; then restoring it to its place, he ac- 
 companied it on its way to the city. 
 
 'As it passed along, the river was perfumed with the odours 
 which ascended from the barges, and when they reached the city, 
 the priests and nobles of the king, and all the chief men, advancing 
 into the water, took the shrine upon their shoulders and bore it to 
 the palace, accompanied by an innumerable multitude of spectators. 
 The grandees, taking off their costly robes, spread them on the way, 
 in order that those who carried that abominable relic might walk 
 upon them. 
 
 ' The tooth was at last deposited in the centre of the courtyard 
 of the palace, under a costly tabernacle, upon which the monarch 
 and all his grandees presented their offerings, declaring their lineage, 
 all which was recorded by scribes nominated for that duty. Here it 
 remained two months, till the Vihare which they set about erecting 
 could be constructed, and on which such expenditure was lavished 
 as to cause an insurrection in the kingdom.' 
 
 In the following year details of all these transactions reached the 
 ears of Wikrama Bahu, King of Kandy, who was filled with jealousy 
 that his kinsman, the King of Cotta, should have secured so much 
 treasure. He therefore despatched an envoy to the King of Pegu to 
 tell him the whole truth, of how the wife and the tooth he had 
 secured were alike frauds, the genuine tooth being in the safe keep- 
 ing of the Kandyan monarch himself, who now offered his own royal 
 daughter in marriage to the King of Pegu. 
 
 Apparently he also hinted at being open to a bid for the tooth, 
 for King Brama, after due reflection, reg,olved to hush up the story 
 of the frauds, and therefore merely replied that he was duly sensible 
 of the honour designed for him by the proffered alliance, and like- 
 wise by the offer of the tooth, and that as a mark of consideration for
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 225 
 
 the King of Kandy he would send back by his ambassadors a ship- 
 load of presents. 
 
 Thereupon he prepared two vessels, each freighted with rice and 
 rich cloths, one for the King of Cotta, the other for the jealous King 
 of Kandy. On board of the former he sent all the Portuguese sub- 
 jects who had been held captive in Pegu, and from the lips of one of 
 these De Couto wrote his narrative.^ The vessel for the King of 
 Kandy had her cables maliciously cut, and was wrecked in Colombo 
 harbour. 
 
 Sir James Tennant, commenting on this story, observes that 'the 
 Singhalese never seem to have been scrupulous about multiplying 
 Buddha's teeth, for Marco Polo says the great Khan Khubla sent to 
 demand one in the year 1281, and obtained from the King of Ceylon 
 two large back teeth, together with some of his hair.' 
 
 Long before the days of King Brama of Pegu, another Burmese 
 monarch, Anarapta, who reigned in the eleventh century, sent a 
 mission to Ceylon to treat for the purchase of the tooth, of which ' a 
 miraculous emanation ' was delivered to his ambassadors. It must 
 have been a solid fact, for the temple in which it was lodged is still 
 shown, attached to the palace of Amarapura. 
 
 Sir Henry Yule tells how yet another Burmese monarch, King 
 Nauratha Men-zan, went with a large army into China to invite a 
 tooth of Buddha to come to Burmah. The tusk, as it is called, 
 declined to come, but a duplicate was miraculously produced, and 
 was enshrined in the Shwe-Zeegoong Pagoda, one of the most 
 celebrated temples in Burmah.'^ 
 
 The Burmese, however, do not seem to have been satisfied with 
 these duplicate teeth, for when in 181 5 the present piece of ivory 
 was captured by the British, the King of Burmah, Minderagu Praio, 
 sent two embassies to Calcutta to treat for its purchase. 
 
 The British soon afterwards received a practical lesson in the 
 necessity of guarding this coveted object, for in the insurrection of 
 1 818 the priests in charge of it carried it off to lend its influence to 
 the insurgents. By a happy accident the British recaptured it, 
 whereupon the Kandyans laid down their arms, saying, ' As the 
 English possessed the tooth, they had the right to govern.' 
 
 It was then committed to the care of the Government agent, who 
 kept the key of its shrine, and the temple was guarded by sentrits 
 
 1 Translated from the Portuguese by Sir James Emerson Tennant. 
 * Mission to the Court of Ava.
 
 226 rirO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 till 1S47, when objections being raised to such official recognition of 
 idolatry, the relic was returned to the care of the Buddhist priests. 
 Shortly afterwards, however, another insurrection broke out, and 
 but for the timely action of the Government agent in securing the 
 Delada, it would again have been carried off to inspirit 'the rebels. 
 When all danger seemed past, it was restored to the priests, who 
 have had it in charge for the last forty years. 
 
 Of the other teeth supposed to have been rescued from Gautama 
 Buddha's funeral pyre, I was shown one in the Monastery of Kushan, 
 on the sacred mount overlooking the city of Foochoow. It is kept 
 in a dull casket within a securely locked shrine. Before it lies an 
 elephant's tooth — an appropriate offering.' It is supposed to have 
 been brought to China in a.d. 530 by an embassy from Persia to the 
 Chinese Emperor. The Buddhists in China are said to have several 
 similar relics. 
 
 Fa Hian, the Chinese traveller who in the fourth century visited 
 so very many shrines, tells of a tooth which was preserved by the 
 priests at Ladak, and in honour of which a tower had been erected. 
 He mentions another which was treasured by the King of Nakia in 
 Afghanistan. 
 
 Mr. William Simpson, of the ' Illustrated London News,' has just 
 sent me what he calls ' a complete set of teeth ! ' most of which are 
 mentioned by another Chinese traveller — namely, Hiouen Thsang, 
 who lived in the first half of the seventh century. He records that 
 teeth of the Tatagata were to be found all over India, and as far as 
 Balkh, where he saw a back tooth very much like the Delada at 
 Kandy — namely, about an inch in length, and of a yellowish-white 
 colour. He says it continually gave forth a lustre of happy augury. 
 He saw another (which is described as a milk-tooth), answering to 
 exactly the same description, in the north-west of Cabul, and one 
 rather larger in Cashmere. 
 
 He was told of another enclosed in a stupa or dagoba at 
 Nagarahara, the former capital of the Jellalabad valley. 
 
 At Bamian he found quite a collection of teeth. There was a 
 back tooth of Gautama Buddha, and also one of a T'o-Khio 
 Pratyeka Buddha, who lived at the beginning of the present kalpa. 
 The latter was five inches in length, and rather less than four in cir- 
 cumference ! A third tooth was that of a king who had turned the 
 
 ' ' Wanderings in China,' pp. 261-267. By C. F. Gordon Gumming. William 
 Blackwood & Sons.
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 227 
 
 wheel of gold (Souvarna tchakra radja). This was three inches long 
 and two in circumference. 
 
 At Nalanda, the great monastery near Buddha-gaya, he saw a tooth 
 of Buddha an inch and a half long, and yellowish-white. He also 
 tells of a mountain in Gandhara which was called Danta-loka, or 
 Heaven of the Tooth. 
 
 Dr. Edkins says that in the monasteries of Northern China there 
 are various teeth and other relics of Sakya-muni — alias Ikiddha. 
 He describes a tooth which he saw at the temple called Teu-shwai-si, 
 which was two inches and a half thick and ten by thirteen in 
 width ! ' — a miraculous tooth indeed, and yet insignificant compared 
 with one, likewise attributed to Buddha, which weighs about twenty 
 pounds, and is enshrined in one of the numerous temples which 
 cluster round Mount 0-mei, a mighty mountain 10,000 feet high in 
 Central Ssu-ch'un, the great place of pilgrimage for the Buddhists 
 of Western China. Only think how terribly poor Buddha must have 
 suffered before he cut such a wisdom-tooth as that ! 
 
 Apparently some special virtue attaches to teeth, whatever be 
 their origin. In his ' River of Golden Sand,' Captain Gill describes 
 an object held in reverence by the people of Ch'eng-Tu, in Northern 
 China — namely, a stone called 'The Tooth of Heaven.' 'It was 
 merely a bit of sandstone in the shape of a tooth. There was a 
 little house built over the entrance to it, but the roof did not cover 
 the stone itself, for they say that if the stone were covered, the God 
 of Thunder would commit some fearful devastation on the town.' 
 
 In India a few years ago a small tope was opened by Dr. Bird, 
 near the Kankeri caves in the Isle of Salsette, and therein was found 
 a copper-plate recording that a canine tooth of Sakya had once been 
 deposited there. But it had departed. 
 
 Another vanished tooth is that of St. Patrick — at least there is 
 an allusion in the 'Archaeological Journal' (vol. xvi., 1859, p. 150) 
 to the Fiocail Phadraig, or Shrine of St. Patrick's Tooth. 
 
 Apart from things held sacred, the prices obtained for kindred 
 treasures, even in modern P'.ngland, are sometimes startling. Imagine 
 Sir Isaac Newton's tooth having been sold in 1816 for ^730 ! The 
 purchaser had it set as a ring, and wore it till the day of his death. 
 ' Wanted. A fool and his money.' Would not that be the right 
 heading for an auctioneer's advertisement of such goods ? 
 
 To return to the veritable Delada at Kandy. About twenty years 
 ' ' Chinese Buddhism," p. 250. 
 
 Q 2
 
 2-8 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 ago the Siamese sent an embassy to Ceylon, offering a sum of ^50,000 
 for permission to remove the Tooth to their own capital. The offer 
 was rejected with scorn. They then begged that the Tooth should 
 be dipped in oil, which they might carry back to their king. 
 
 But the ambassadors were not even allowed to look at the 
 precious and greatly coveted object. They appealed to the British 
 authorities, and appointed an agent to plead their cause. At his 
 request the priests were commanded to produce the Tooth, that he 
 might the better explain their exact wishes. No sooner was the 
 jealously guarded treasure revealed than he produced a small piece 
 of rag, and observing, ' This is all my clients want,' he rapidly rubbed 
 it over the holy relic as if merely illustrating their wishes, and quickly 
 dropped the rag into a small phial of oil. Thus the oil was conse- 
 crated, and endued with sufficient virtue to consecrate tons of oil 
 wherewith to sanctify the whole kingdom of Siam. Of course the 
 priests were furious, and vowed that the tooth had been desecrated ; 
 but the mischief was irreparable, and the ambassadors returned to 
 their own land with their money in hand and a holy oil that was 
 nearly as efficacious as the possession of the Tooth itself. 
 
 The account of the Siamese ambassadors and their little phial of 
 consecrated oil reminds me of some very similar use of relics in our 
 own land. Thus Dr Rock • mentions that in olden days, ' when any 
 widespreading disease befell this land and took off men or beasts 
 of the field, our bishops would send forth orders that the relics 
 in every church should be steeped in holy water, which was after- 
 wards to be sprinkled on the sick or given them to be drunk as a 
 medicine.' 
 
 Hence arose the fame of the Durham water, wherein had been 
 washed the dead body of St. Cuthbert, and the still more famous relic- 
 water of Canterbury, wherein was mixed some well-diluted portion of 
 the blood of the murdered Thomas a Becket (scraped up with the dust 
 off the pavement), a relic which, being carried round the neck of 
 'y® pilgrime,' was a sure safeguard against all ill. 
 
 We of the nineteenth century would fain believe that English 
 common-sense had driven out all such folly. Yet it is only a few years 
 since the daily papers were discussing the curious homage paid annu- 
 ally by hundreds ofour countrymen in Lancash ire to the poor shrivelled 
 hand of a certain Father Arrowsmith, which is kept in a white silk 
 bag at Garswood, in charge of the Roman Catholic priests ; and the 
 1 ' Church of our Fathers. '
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 229 
 
 sick and afflicted flock thither in hopes that they may be cured of 
 their diseases by a touch of the holy hand. We heard of one poor 
 woman who had travelled many miles to have this healing touch 
 applied to a paralysed side, a curious revelation indeed of superstition 
 in England in our own day. 
 
 As we ponder on the strange relic-worship of heathen lands, a 
 stranger vision yet rises before us of the relics still held priceless by 
 Christian people of the Roman and Greek Churches, and of many 
 more, once precious objects of adoration, now lost to the faithful, such 
 as a Tooth of Our Lord, whereby the monks of S. Medard de Soissons 
 prete?ided hi olden days to tvork miracles. Or that arm of St. Augustine, 
 which our own Canute commissioned his ambassadors at Rome to 
 purchase for the sum of one hundred talents of silver and one of 
 gold ! 
 
 We are inclined to smile at the superstition of the Kandyans who 
 carried the Tooth to battle to ensure victory, but we forget that King 
 Robert Bruce so greatly revered the arm of St. Fillan that he caused it 
 to be carried by the Abbot of Inchaffray to grace the battle of Ban- 
 nockburn, and doubtless gave the relic its full share of credit for his 
 glorious victory. 
 
 About fifty years earlier. King Henry III. had summoned all his 
 nobles and wise men to meet in London. Multitudes assembled, 
 marvelling for what purpose their presence was required. The king 
 then solemnly announced that the Grand Master of the Knights Tem- 
 plars had sent him a phial containing a few drops of that Most 
 Precious Blood shed upon the Cross, and attested to be genuine by the 
 seals of the patriarch of Jerusalem, and others ! He commanded 
 that onthe following day a great procession should be formed, to con- 
 duct this inestimable relic to Westminster Abbey ; and it has been 
 recorded that though the roads between St. Paul's and Westminster 
 were deep and miry, the king never took his eyes off the sacred phial 
 till he had safely deposited it in the Abbey, dedicating it to God and 
 St. Edward. 'Thus,' says the old historian, ' was all England made 
 to shine with glory ! ' 
 
 Doubtless many remember the fresco in the Grand Master's Palace 
 at Malta, showing the Earl of Cornwall receiving a Reliquary ' full of 
 the Blood of Christ.' And among the relics at Citta Vecchia in Malta 
 are a piece of the True Cross, a fragment of St. Paul's arm, and some 
 milk of the Blessed Virgin ! Verily Christianity can ill afford to jeer 
 at Buddhist relic worship. If, as seems probable (indeed, wellnigh
 
 230 TM'O HAPPY YEARS IN CFA'LON 
 
 certain), this practice was borrowed by the Christians from the fol- 
 lowers of Buddha, the pupils have surely surpassed their teacher in 
 their multitude of strange objects of veneration. 
 
 As to the fragments of the True Cross, treasured by all the 
 Churches, it has been computed that, were they all collected, they might 
 suffice to build a ship of the line ! This was openly acknowledged by 
 the priests, who rather glorified in the fact : St. Cyril, after declaring 
 that the whole earth was filled with this sacred wood, went so far as to 
 compare its amazingly diffusive powers to the miracle of the loaves 
 and fishes ! 
 
 The tears of our Saviour, and those of the Virgin and of St. Peter, 
 were also bought freely by pilgrims to the Holy Land, and brought 
 home in jewelled caskets, while the hair and toe-nails of divers saints 
 have ever been treasured as priceless relics. Of St. Peter's nails it was 
 estimated that enough existed to have filled a large sack, so prolific 
 were the sacred toes of that great apostle. Some of these are still 
 preserved at Aix-la-Chapelle, and the faithful make pilgrimages from 
 afar to gaze upon them ! 
 
 To such an extent was the veneration for Christian relics carried, 
 that in the days of Constantine it was solemnly decreed in Council 
 that all altars beneath which none were found should be demolished, 
 as a church without relics could not be consecrated ; and so, even in 
 the present day, the Church of Rome requires that some holy tooth, 
 hair, or nail shall, on the consecration of every new church, be carried 
 in solemn procession by the priests to the altar, and therein deposited 
 by the Bishop (who stands mitreless to receive that precious reli- 
 quary, hoping perhaps that his own bones may some day receive similar 
 honour). Having duly offered incense, he anoints the covering- 
 stone with holy oil, and so seals the relic tomb, while solemn anthems 
 rise, and prayers are duly said. 
 
 We can only account for such strange excrescences of Christianity 
 (professedly the worship solely of One Living Lord) by the assumption 
 that even among ourselves the widespread instinct of ancestor- worship 
 survives to an extent we dare not admit. 
 
 How else can we account for the craving for saintly relics even in 
 this wise nineteenth century ? In Italy, not many years ago, it led 
 to a scene that would disgrace savages — namely, a free fight over the 
 dead body of a saintly Bishop, which resulted in the populace 
 tearing off every fragment of his episcopal robes as most precious 
 relics ; so that at length the military had to come in and rescue
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 231 
 
 the poor naked corpse, which the civic authorities were unable to 
 defend.^ 
 
 In France thousands annually wend their way to the Puy de 
 Dome, there to do homage to the ' Sainte Ceinture ' — the Holy Girdle 
 supposed to have been worn by the Mother of our Lord— and which 
 was conveyed to the mountains of Auvergne by a crusading Count of 
 Poitou six or seven centuries ago. 
 
 Multitudes more make devout pilgrimage to a shrine near Samur, 
 
 1 This scandalous scene, which occurred at Torre del Greco in August 1872, was 
 thus reported by the Daily News : — 
 
 ' Last Monday, Torre del Grfcco was in a state of indescribable tumult. The 
 Bishop of Ischia, Monsignor Romano, who was a native of the place, had died, and 
 on that day was to be buried in the public cemetery. Some time before his death 
 popular feeling had declared the dying Bishop to be a saint. When he died his body 
 was first laid out in the church, and thence, on Monday, the 5th, followed by an im- 
 mense crowd, was conveyed to the cemetery. 
 
 ' But it was not destined to reach on that day its earthly resting-place, for before 
 entering the gate messengers came hastening from the town to announce that the dead 
 Bishop was working miracles — that one lame man of Sorrento had suddenly been able 
 to walk ; that another who for years could only crawl on crutches had thrown them 
 away and attained the use of his limbs ; that a young waiter in a caf6, known for years 
 to be dumb, had received the use of his speech ; with other marvels of the like kind. 
 " A miracle ! a miracle ! a miracle ! " cry the excited crowd. 
 
 ' The bearers of the corpse were prevented from entering the cemetery. The 
 funeral procession turned back ; and as the coffin was brought again to the church of 
 Torre del Greco, cries of "Bring out the sick!" "Bring out the fever patients!" 
 " Bring out the paralytic ! " rang out all along the road, the crowd telling the inmates 
 of the houses before which they passed to carry into the street the sick, that they 
 might participate in the miraculous cures which the dead Bishop was effecting. 
 
 ' At length the corpse was brought to the church ; the large crucifi.x on the altar 
 was torn down, and the dead body of the wonder-working Bishop put in its place. 
 The deceased had been arr.iyed in episcopal garments, but these soon disappeared. 
 The populace, in the belief that the powers of the dead saint would attach to every 
 shred of his clothes which they might secure, made a rush — each ignorant fanatic 
 energetically tearing and struggling to seize and carry off a precious relic. So effec- 
 tually was the corpse stripped that there remained at last only the naked form of the 
 poor Bishop. 
 
 ' The parish priest in whose church the scene took place, after having vainly 
 attempted to dissuade the populace, seems to have thought that his own safety would 
 be best secured by flight. Meanwhile the local magistrate and the mayor, with a party 
 of Carbineers, hastened to the spot for the purpose of restoring order. The mob 
 would not listen to their exhortations. " He is working miracles ! " " He is working 
 miracles ! " was again the universal cry. 
 
 At this stage of the proceedings the steward, or manager of the church funds, 
 mounted the pulpit and told the people tliat the age of miracles had passed away. He 
 might have paid dearly for this untimely announcement had not a sudden and violent 
 ringing of the church bells diverted the attention of the people, and brought them out 
 into the street to ascertain the cause. This diversion was dexterously taken advantage 
 of by the mayor and the other authorities. The doors of the church were shut and 
 barred, the naked corpse was left undisturbed, and before long the arrival of a sufficient 
 military force proved the best preventive against a renewal of such outrages,'
 
 232 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 in the Alps of Dauphiny, to purchase holy water from a well said to 
 have sprung from the Madonna's tears, and which, consequently, is an 
 infallible cure for sore eyes. 
 
 A leading article in the 'Times,' September 2, 1872, after 
 speaking of the so-called miraculous apparition of Notre Dame de la 
 Salette in 1846, and reminding its readers how the case was tried in 
 a court of law and proved to be a glaring imposture— a poor half- 
 crazed lady having been convicted of acting the part, with the con- 
 nivance of sundry other people — added, 'Yet in spite of this, our 
 Lady of La Salette is now greater than she ever was ; a temple of 
 enormous dimensions has risen in her honour ; the pilgrims, who, till 
 lately, did not exceed 40,000 to 60,000, are mustering this year more 
 than the average ; and the sale of the water from the Holy Well, 
 said to have sprung from the Virgin's tears, realised more than 
 ;^i 2,000.' 
 
 Twenty years have elapsed since that leader was penned, and still 
 the popularity of this Well of Tears shows no symptom of waning. 
 
 Thousands more betake them to the Holy Well at Lourdes in the 
 Pyrenees, which was also sanctified by the miraculous appearance of 
 the Virgin, and which also works wondrous cures on all threatened 
 with blindness, provided they thrice pray, and thrice bathe their eyes 
 with the healing waters. One devout pilgrim was so well satisfied 
 with the benefit he there received, that he published a detailed account 
 of his cure. The book rapidly passed through upwards of forty 
 editions, and while bringing a considerable annual income to the 
 author, has encouraged thousands of fresh pilgrims to press onwards 
 to the same goal. 
 
 But we need not go beyond Ireland for cases in point, as every 
 one knows who has visited Our Lady's Well at Knock, in County 
 Mayo, in the middle of August, when deaf, dumb, blind, paralytic, 
 and insane persons may be cured by spending a whole night alone in 
 the adjoining churchyard ! Should anyone, however, touch or speak 
 to them, the charm would be broken. A wall, near which the 
 blessed Virgin was said to have appeared, had to be taken down, but 
 the mortar was carried to the priest's house, and has ever since been 
 sold in fragments to give virtue to the foundation of new houses. All 
 rain that falls on the chapel is so holy that it is carried home in bottles 
 by the pilgrims. The first fire in a new house must be kindled by a 
 blessed candle bought at this shrine ; and if ever a turf fire goes out 
 (which is unlucky), it must be rekindled by the same means,
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 233 
 
 To bring these strange subjects quite up to date, I must just refer 
 to the exhibition of the Holy Coat, which has drawn such crowds to 
 Trbves (or, as we must now call it, Trier) in the autumn of 189 1. As 
 every one now knows, the garment which has been invested with such 
 sacred interest is supposed to be the very coat without seam worn by 
 our Lord on the day of His Crucifixion, and for which the soldiers 
 cast lots. 
 
 Where it lay for the next three hundred years, even ecclesiastical 
 legend does not state, but about a.d. 311 a seamless garment of 
 brownish material was brought from Palestine by the Empress Helena, 
 mother of the I^mperor Constantine the Great, on that memorable 
 pilgrimage when she was supposed to have also discovered the True 
 Cross. 
 
 She deposited the Holy Coat in the Cathedral at Treves, where, 
 in the ninth century, it was concealed from the ravaging Normans in 
 the crypt, and was not rediscovered till 1196, when it was solemnly 
 deposited by the Archbishop within the newly consecrated high altar 
 of the Cathedral, enclosed in a beautiful chest of wood and ivory. 
 Thence, three hundred years later, it was brought forth for exhibition 
 at Easter 15 12, when absolution was promised to all who came to do 
 it homage. It continued on show for twenty-three days, during which 
 the Emperor Maximilian held a Reichstag in the town, which brought 
 thither representatives of the kings of England, France, and Navarre, 
 besides numerous princes, dukes, bishops, nobles, and 100,000 pilgrims 
 of lower degree. 
 
 Such was the enthusiasm awakened, that Pope Leo X. com- 
 manded that it should thenceforth be exhibited once in seven years. 
 The progress of the Reformation, however, rendered this impossible 
 or undesirable. In 1640, during the Thirty Years' War, it was carried 
 for safety to Cologne, thence to Ehrenbreitstein, Wiirzburg, Bamburg, 
 and Augsburg, where it remained till iSio, when it was restored to 
 Treves, and welcomed with the wildest enthusiasm. 
 
 It was brought back in a waggon all garlanded with flowers, and 
 every town and village through which it passed held festival. As it 
 entered Treves itself, all business was at a standstill, altars with 
 burning tapers lined the road, streets were decorated, paths strewn 
 with flowers, men and women wept for joy. At that time it was com- 
 puted that at least 227,000 persons came to gaze upon it. Again, in 
 1844, it was displayed to still larger crowds, the total number of 
 pilgrims exceeding a million of human beings, whose adoration
 
 234 T'lVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 evoked such response in the sacred vestment that it commenced 
 working miracles, upwards of a score of miraculous cures of diverse 
 diseases being circumstantially recorded. 
 
 And now in 1891, funds being required for the restoration of the 
 Cathedral, it was decided to exhibit the Holy Coat for fifty days, from 
 August 18 till October 6, so as to allow ample time for a multitude of 
 pilgrims to bring their offerings. Large barracks were erected for the 
 accommodation of pilgrims, tanneries and storehouses were fitted up 
 with bedding consisting of sacks of straw, almost every dwelling- 
 house arranged to let the largest possible number of beds at the 
 highest possible price. 
 
 The one thought of all the inhabitants seems to have been how to 
 reap the largest pecuniary harvest from the pilgrims. It is said that, 
 with a keen eye to business, no less than four hundred persons 
 applied for licences to open hotels and restaurants. But, besides the 
 provision of necessary board and lodging, there was much ingenuity 
 in devising a strangely varied assortment of objects for sale, such as 
 medallions, rosaries, images, cigarettes, pocket-handkerchiefs, boxes 
 of sweetmeats, even match-boxes, all bearing the picture of the sacred 
 tunic, which was also embossed on the bowls of clay pipes ! Near 
 the railway stations there were whole villages of refreshment booths, 
 and for the sale of these catch-pennies. A single firm ordered 1,500 
 dozens of one picture of the garment. 
 
 The city was gay with countless flags ; the Bishop's flag, bearing a 
 great red cross on a white ground, floated from the Cathedral. Day 
 after day endless processions of picturesque pilgrims with sacred 
 banners poured into the city, wearing the distinctive costumes of their 
 several provinces, and marched about the livelong day chanting Ave 
 Marias and the Litany of the Sacred Coat. Dancing, concerts, and 
 all secular amusements, were prohibited during the fifty days. As 
 some consolation, however, there was granted a general dispensation 
 from all fasting during that period. 
 
 The account of the disentombment of the sacred tunic from 
 within the high altar is even more strange than are the details of the 
 enshrinement of Buddha's Tooth in its various cases. The provost of 
 the Cathedral having read the protocol of the last locking up of the 
 relic in the previous year, three officials opened the high altar, thence 
 breaking out large masses of stone with heavy crowbars. A box about 
 two metres long was then lifted out and opened, and a long document 
 and a smaller box covered with leather were taken out ; within the
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 235 
 
 latter lay another document and a third box of metal, fastened with 
 six seals. 
 
 The Bishop threw a red cloth over this metal box, and with the 
 aid of the provost carried it to the treasure chamber, where the seals 
 were carefully examined, and found to be intact, after which the box 
 was opened, and the Bishop took thence a parcel wrapped in blue silk, 
 within which was a wrapping of red silk, and within that of white silk, 
 enfolding the vestment, which he then spread out on the table. No 
 one else was privileged to touch it. 
 
 It was found to be in so tattered a condition that it could not be 
 exhibited. Various experts were consulted, and finally a venerable 
 nun was called in, who proposed that the fragments should be 
 gummed together, the material being too much worn to stand the strain 
 of needle and thread. It seems to have been previously mounted in 
 a similar manner, as a microscopic examination proved it to be a 
 triple garment, the brown linen lying between a coating of purple silk 
 and one of greenish silk, all of very ancient manufacture. 
 
 The garment thus renovated was placed full length in an oaken 
 shrine, open in front and lined with white silk, and this was suspended 
 above the altar, beneath a great golden cross, with a background of 
 rich crimson velvet drapery. The Cathedral was all decorated with 
 garlands of flowers and evergreens, and a thousand citizens of Treves 
 declared their willingness to take it by turns to watch day and night 
 beside the precious relic. 
 
 On the day of the unveiling, a guard of honour of Knights of 
 Malta in scarlet uniform (all members of ancient Catholic nobility) 
 stood with drawn swords on either side of the shrine, and as the 
 light streamed through stained glass windows on these, and on the 
 very large white-robed choir, and a body of upwards of a hundred 
 clergy in richest vestments, and on a vast company of worshippers 
 the scene was striking in the extreme. 
 
 Thenceforth every day, and all day long, a ceaseless throng passed 
 in a continuous stream up the great marble stairs on either side of 
 the altar, so as to pass in front of the relic. Thousands came by 
 special train, thousands more by steamboat, and large waggons from 
 the country — men and women of every degree, from highest nobles 
 and ecclesiastics to poorest peasants, but the admission of children 
 under ten years of age was discouraged, on account of danger in so 
 great a crowd. It was found impossible to arrange for the admission 
 of more than 45,000 persons daily, so multitudes had to wait their
 
 236 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 turn from day to day. In truth, they had need of patience, for not 
 only had the various bands to wait for many hours in the streets, but 
 from the moment of entering the Cathedral till he passed out again 
 each pilgrim took about three hours, progressing at a foot's pace, 
 only a moment's halt for adoration or veneration being possible when 
 he actually reached the Holy Coat. Almost all carried with them 
 some article — a handkerchief, a crucifix, rosary, image, or photograph, 
 which, at the moment of passing, they handed to an attendant 
 priest, that he might therewith touch the coat, and thus sanctify it 
 for ever. 
 
 Day by day, at half-past four in the morning, the Cathedral opened, 
 and crowds poured in from the darkness towards the blaze of light, 
 where the Bishop and clergy ministered at the high altar. The 
 pilgrims included many aged and infirm persons — cripples, blind, 
 deaf, dumb, and many suffering from divers diseases deemed in- 
 curable, who had come from distant parts of Europe and America 
 hoping to be healed. Those provided with medical and good- 
 conduct certificates were permitted to touch the garment ; and pitiful 
 was the intense earnestness with which they awaited the eagerly 
 desired miracle ! 
 
 Nothing was more remarkable than the quiet and orderly conduct 
 of these vast crowds of poor devout peasants. There was no drunken- 
 ness, and the publicans who had laid in incredible stores of beer and 
 wine in expectation of much conviviality, were grievously disap- 
 pointed at the small consumption thereof. 
 
 At the close of the fifty days' exhibition, it was found that no less 
 than 1,925,130 persons had visited the Cathedral, and many tardy 
 pilgrims were subsequently admitted to the treasure-chamber in 
 which the Coat was then temporarily enshrined. The united offer- 
 ings realised an immense sum. 
 
 When so-called Christian relics are turned to such profitable use, 
 we can scarcely wonder that the revered bit of ivory at Kandy should 
 in like manner be exhibited as a secure method of raising funds for 
 temple repairs. 
 
 In the case of all objects of veneration, it appears inevitable that 
 many claimants for the honour should exist, and so it was found to 
 be in this case, for no sooner was this exhibition of the Treves relic 
 announced, than various other cities were found to be in possession 
 of a garment supposed to be that which was worn on Calvary. The 
 most determined of these rivals was the Coat of Argenteuil, which
 
 THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH ^37 
 
 was likewise subjected to microscopic investigation, and pronounced 
 by the Pope to liave been a genuine garment worn by our Lord, but 
 in earlier years than that of Treves ; so Argenteuil had to bow to 
 this decree, and accept a lower place in the scale of relic-owners. 
 
 But perhaps the most singular relics thus brought from sacred 
 seclusion into sudden publicity are ' the holy Trousers of Saint 
 Joseph,' enshrined in the treasure-chamber of the great church of 
 Maria-Zell in Styria, the recovery of which is likewise ascribed to 
 the Empress Helena on her memorable visit to Palestine. (I was 
 not aware that such garments were worn in Judea in the first century, 
 but here is proof positive !) They are preserved in a glass case 
 behind a screen, in a corner of what is said to be probably the largest 
 collection in Europe of curious relics of this sort. They are said to 
 be much worn — in fact, to have been darned and patched. Women 
 are not allowed to gaze upon these garments, which, however, are said 
 to have wrought remarkable miracles for some lords of the creation, 
 as is testified in a certain document bearing large official seals, and 
 illustrated by a picture of a happy Croatian couple on their knees, 
 followed by a troop of kneeling children, whose existence is ascribed 
 to the miraculous influence of these remarkable nether garments ! A 
 small vignette also shows the happy father with his money-bags, 
 kneeling at the feet of a group of bishops, one of whom is holding 
 up these venerable trousers. 
 
 First and last, relic-worship is a singular subject, and the habit 
 occasionally brings honour to most unexpected objects. Thus the 
 author of ' Erewhon ' relates that he once passed an Italian woman 
 kneeling in devout worship before a dentist's show-case in the Hamp- 
 stead Road, evidently believing the teeth to be worshipful and 
 saintly relics ! Doubtless they answered her purpose quite as well 
 as any more highly authenticated fragments of humanity.
 
 238 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 
 
 The Alu-Vihara— Dambulla Rock Temple — Sigiri — Murder of Dhatu Sena — Rita 
 gala — Restoration of Kala-wewa and other tanks — Ancient system of irrigation — 
 Serfdom — Opening ceremonial — Vigita-pura — Colossal Buddha at the Aukana 
 Vihara. 
 
 Of course one of the objects most to be desired in visiting 
 Ceylon is to accomplish an expedition to the ruins of the pre-Chris- 
 tian city of Anuradhapura, in the heart of the North-Central Pro- 
 vince, and of the more recent, but almost equally ruined, city of 
 Pollanaruvva, which lies inland on the eastern coast — both buried 
 in the depths of the jungle. 
 
 Even now these are not easily accessible to ordinary mortals, and 
 involve somewhat troublesome and expensive travelling, as it is 
 necessary to arrange for hiring a carriage for the whole trip, unless 
 one is content to travel part of the way by a wretched two-horse 
 coach, and the rest by public bullock-cart, which proceeds at the 
 rate of two-and a-half miles per hour, the bullocks being adorned 
 with necklaces of jingling bells — a hateful addition to the creaking of 
 wooden wheels and the clouds of hot dust. I was, therefore, fully 
 conscious of singular good fortune when the Governor most kindly 
 arranged that I should form one of his party to Anuradhapura in the 
 month of June ; while the Bishop, having occasion to visit many 
 places on the east coast in the autumn, promised that I should then 
 see Pollanaruwa. 
 
 Leaving Kandy at daybreak on June 6, we drove down the Balla- 
 caduwa Pass to Matale — i.e., the Maha-talawa, or great plain, which 
 lies 560 feet lower than Kandy. It is a lovely drive to a very pretty, 
 long, straggling town, with rich foliage on all hands, and glimpses of 
 a fine river, the Pinga-oya, and beautiful hills crowning all. (A 
 railway is now open thus far, so that this first stage is made easy for 
 travellers.) 
 
 I would advise any artist in search of characteristic scenery to 
 ride from here to the summit of Vicarton Gorge, which is about 
 3,500 feet above the sea. It is a very steep eight miles uphill, through 
 rocky coffee plantations — of course without a bit of shade — but on 
 reaching the summit the view is rewarding. You look down between
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 239 
 
 two mighty crags of chocolate-coloured rock, crowned with green 
 forest, to a fertile valley far below, all laid out in thousands of small 
 rice-fields, with here and there hillocks of rock and timber. These 
 are not prosaic angular fields, like the familiar fields of Britain, but a 
 multitude of small crescents terracing every undulation of the land, 
 and at the season when I saw them each was a glittering lakelet. 
 And the great valley itself winds like the course of a wide stream, 
 vanishing in the distance amid interminable ranges of shapely blue 
 hills. 
 
 About 100 B.C. Matale was one of the royal residences of King 
 Walagam-bahu, who lived in stormy times, his country being invaded 
 by great armies from Malabar. The king was driven from his throne, 
 and, like our own Prince Charlie, he wandered about, finding con- 
 cealment in rocky caves known only to the natives. When, after 
 fifteen years, he was restored to the throne, he remembered the caves 
 which had given him sanctuary, and elaborated many of them into 
 rock temples, in one of which, by his command, a company of 
 Buddhist priests and scribes assembled, and committed to writing on 
 palm-leaves, and in the Pali language, the Scriptures, which till then 
 had been preserved by tradition only. 
 
 The cave of so great literary interest is the Alu-Vihara, rather 
 more than two miles from Matale. We visited it after breakfast, and 
 found it, like nearly all the so-called cave-temples in Ceylon, to be 
 by no means what we understand by a cave, but merely a series of 
 recesses among huge fragments of fallen crag and gigantic weather- 
 worn boulders of dark gneiss, some of which form overhanging 
 canopies, so leaving partial caves. These are artificially walled up 
 in front, and a thatched or tiled verandah is added in front, while 
 the inside is furnished with divers images, and the rock-walls are 
 frequently decorated with gaudy frescoes of mythological scenes. 
 Some of these are wiharas, or temples, others pansalas, or priests' 
 cells. 
 
 We ascended by steep stairs, hewn in the rock, to visit some little 
 relic-shrines ; but the powerful smell of multitudes of small bats, 
 which cluster among these rocks, was sickening. Their presence, 
 however, is useful, as the dark-brown soil is greatly valued as manure, 
 and the natives even obtain nitre with which to make gunpowder by 
 boiling and filtering this dust. 
 
 Thence we drove on, up hill and down dale, passing various finely- 
 shaped hills, especially Aran-galla, which formed a noble background
 
 240 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 for an interesting ruined Hindoo temple (Gedige) near Nalande, 
 where we spent the first night. There was the usual gathering of 
 village head-men and other picturesque natives to receive the 
 Governor ; and the approach to the rest-house, which is very prettily 
 situated among dark trees, was beautifully decorated with a most 
 graceful pandal (the great honorific arch), and a long line of low 
 arches, fringed with foliage. The house was all decorated with calico 
 and flowers ; while a group of cadjan — i.e., plaited palm-leaf huts — 
 had been erected for the gentlemen. The wind, however, was so 
 wild as effectually to murder sleep : so we were all rather tired for 
 next morning's early start eti route to Dam bulla (hitherto called 
 Dambool), where we spent the day and night, to allow time for seeing 
 the most remarkable group of rock-caves in Ceylon. 
 
 The road was very beautiful, partly a steep descent between 
 rocky mountains, and overshadowed by great trees. On our way we 
 crossed the dry beds of several streams — the Mirisgoni-oya, the 
 Dambulu-oya, the Malwatta-oya, and the Nalanda-oya, which are 
 typical Ceylonese rivers. For nine months of the year they are at 
 best feeble rills, trickling through an expanse of dry sand, but in the 
 rain torrents of the N.E. monsoon in November and December the 
 rivers are in flood, pouring down from the hills in raging torrents, 
 and impassable for days together. Strange to say, the system adopted 
 in opening up this country was to make excellent roads first, and 
 leave the bridges to be constructed by the next generation ; whereas 
 it certainly seems as if the bridges were the primary necessity. These 
 have now been supplied, and fine iron lattice bridges now allow of 
 secure travel at all seasons. 
 
 The banks of some of these streams are suggestive of coarse 
 basket-work, so close is the network of interlacing roots of great 
 trees. One which is conspicuous is the kabuk tree, which is very 
 large, and seems not to mind drought — in fact, the natives say it 
 attracts a reservoir for its own use, and they can always find water 
 near its roots. The red timber is prized as being very durable, so 
 the tree is valuable in all its stages. 
 
 Though the road from Matale seems to wind as much up hill as 
 down, we were steadily losing level, Dambulla being only 533 feet 
 above the sea. Here from a level plain rises a solitary huge mass of 
 bare dark-red gneiss rock, about 500 feet in height and 2,000 in length. 
 It is certainly more curious than beautiful, and the sketch with 
 which I beguiled the heat of the noontide was largely indebted to
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 241 
 
 its foreground of luxuriant palmated cacti with yellow blossoms. 
 The great tree-cactus, with arms like a gigantic candelabra, also 
 flourishes in this hot district, a very weird-looking plant. I might 
 have included a white ant's castle, as these are numerous and con- 
 spicuous objects. 
 
 A few human beings, looking like moving mites on the summit, 
 gave me a good idea of the great size of this smooth rounded moun- 
 tain of rock, chief among many which tower like dark-reddish islands 
 from the green levels of rice or jungle, forming a very remarkable 
 geological feature of this part of Ceylon. One of just the same 
 character and apparent height as this towers above Kurunegalla, and, 
 in common with most of these, is crowned by a venerated temple 
 and great relic-shrines : some, as at Dambulla, have caves in ledges 
 near the summit, which have been fashioned into temples, and curious 
 weather-worn pot-holes are supposed to have been the baths of 
 sundry kings and saints. 
 
 In the afternoon we started by a jungle path to the base of the 
 rock, and then passing the pansala, or monk's cell, began the steep 
 ascent by a path across the bare rock, which, however, gives a firm 
 foothold, and at last landed us on the platform of arid rock in front 
 of the temples, where, strange to say, a large bo-tree and a few cocoa- 
 palms contrive to subsist. Of course some of the yellow-robed 
 fraternity were waiting to do the honours, their colouring and grace- 
 fully worn drapery being specially harmonious with the surroundings 
 of dark rock. 
 
 Though I had begun to realise that memories of India must 
 really not be allowed to force themselves into comparison with scenes 
 in Ceylon, the mention of famous rock temples insensibly suggested 
 thoughts of Elephanta and EUora, with the inevitable result of a feel- 
 ing of disappointment at the roughness of detail, and general jar to 
 one's sense of artistic beauty. But once comparisons are dismissed, 
 one realises how strange are the succession of pictures presented 
 by these five caves, each full of idols, dimly seen by the subdued 
 light. 
 
 The first cave is the Maha Dewa Dewale — i.e., * the Temple of 
 the Great God,' a name familiar in Hindoo cities as that of Siva, 
 but which here is applied to Vishnu, whose wooden image is here 
 present, and so greatly venerated that ordeal by oath is still practised 
 in its presence. So was ordeal by boiling oil, which happily is now 
 illegal. It stands facing a gigantic recumbent figure of Buddha in
 
 242 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 the sleep of Nirvana, lying on one side, with the head resting on the 
 hand, and sacred lotus-blossoms engraven on the soles of the feet. 
 At the feet stands a wooden statue of a disciple watching his master's 
 long sleep, and several small images of Buddha. The great one is 
 forty-seven feet in length, and is said by the priests to be sawn from 
 the solid rock, which in this case seems impossible, unless the whole 
 cave were artificial, of which there is no trace. 
 
 The adornment of this cave is attributed to King Walagam Bahu, 
 about 80 B.C., after he had conquered the Malabar invaders, so it 
 is singular that such a devout Buddhist should have dedicated his 
 work to Vishnu. The finely sculptured stone doorway is decorated 
 with many figures, and two guardians canopied by the seven-headed 
 cobra. 
 
 In the next cavern — the Maha-raja-Wihare, ' the Temple of the 
 Great King ' — there is a large statue of the king himself. This cave 
 is simply a gallery about 170 feet long by 70 feet wide, and 22 
 feet in height at the outer edge ; but this curves backward, so that 
 the back is barely four feet high. In this dark cool chamber 
 are grouped about forty-eight images of Buddha, most of them larger 
 than life : there is something rather impressive about this great 
 company of idols dimly seen through the subdued light, and seated 
 around a relic-shrine. Some are canopied by the seven-headed 
 cobra. There are also images of the Hindoo gods Vishnu, Mata, 
 and Saman, and the goddess Patine (who has to be propitiated in 
 times of smallpox). 
 
 Here, too, is a large wooden image of King Kirti Sri Nissanga, 
 who about a.d. 1193 restored the temple, which had been sacri- 
 legiously injured by Malabar invaders. He had all the statues re- 
 guilded, and the walls gaudily painted with such a predominance 
 of yellow, that the cave was then named Rangiri, the golden 
 rock. 
 
 On the roof and sides of the rock are painted curious frescoes in 
 the crudest colours, which are periodically renewed, in which all 
 manner of subjects are oddly blended — Hindoo divinities, Buddha 
 and his disciples represented as of divers nations and colours, and 
 crowned with aureoles, that of Buddha himself having semicircles of 
 sacred geese and other sacred emblems. A tiny image of Buddha is 
 shown kneeling at the feet of his predecessor, praying that he may 
 attain to Buddhahood. 
 
 There are also historical scenes, such as the famous duel, fought
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 243 
 
 B.C. 164, between the Singhalese Prince Dutugemunu and the 
 Malabar usurper Elala, a prince of Mysore, each mounted on a great 
 elephant. They met in single contest in presence of their armies, 
 outside the walls of Anuradhapura. After a desperate combat Elala 
 was slain, and Dutugemunu was proclaimed king. As a pious 
 Buddhist, he devoted the rest of his days to all possible acts of atone- 
 ment for the blood he had shed in war. With chivalrous honour he 
 erected a monument to Elala, and enacted that thenceforth, as pro- 
 cessions passed the tomb, music must cease, and even kings must 
 alight from their palanquins. So firmly was this custom rooted, that 
 when, nineteen hundred years later, in 1816, the Kandyan leader of 
 an unsuccessful insurrection was making his escape via Anuradhapura, 
 weary and worn, he caused his palanquin-bearers to halt that he 
 might alight, and walk past the venerated monument. The story 
 was told to us as we stood beside the earthen mound which marks 
 the tomb of Elala. 
 
 There are also quaint representations (with figures ludicrously 
 out of proportion, and fish larger than the ships, popping up their 
 heads from blue waves) of the first landing (b.c. 543) of the Indian 
 Prince Wijeyo with his Singhalese followers, illustrating their conquest 
 of the aborigines. But when our kinsman, Campbell of Islay, visited 
 these caves, with a mind imbued with the quaint parallel myths he 
 had traced in so many lands, he descried many mystic meanings, 
 and found that the priest in charge knew some of them — as, for 
 instance, when the little daughter of the Yakkas, alias demons, alias 
 aborigines, stands pleading before the conquering king, who presently 
 is shown holding up two fingers of his left hand to bless her, 
 who has saved his seven hundred giants in the lotus swamp. Then 
 comes a strange white steed prancing about with the king among a 
 lot of headless black trunks, with heads rolling about all over the 
 place. 
 
 ' She became a mare,' said the priest, ' and helped the king to kill 
 the Yakshas, and he married her, and that was the first king of 
 Ceylon.' To which Mr. Campbell replied : ' I know a Gaelic story in 
 which a lady turns herself into a grey mare and helps a man to slay no 
 end of people, and escape, and conquer a kingdom. And is not the 
 story of the Master Maid, inDasent's translation of Norse tales, founded 
 on the same set of incidents in which a "grey mare is the better 
 horse" ? ... In Scotland it is the King of Norway and the Princess 
 pf Ireland. Here it is the king who comes from the sea and the 
 
 R 2
 
 244 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 princess of the demons on shore. . . . But in Barra, Japan, and 
 Ceylon, at three ends of the world, the same myths are fathered on 
 the fathers of the conquering people and on their little demon 
 mothers.' ' 
 
 Wijeyo married Kuweni, the princess who had helped him to 
 conquer her own relations, but afterwards he sought to strengthen his 
 position by marrying the daughter of an Indian king, and so dismissed 
 her and her children. Mr. Campbell might in this story have found 
 another connecting link between the myths of Scotland and of 
 Ceylon. For, as every good Highlander knows, a red thread bound 
 round any person or object is an effectual safeguard against witch- 
 craft ; ^ and here in Ceylon, no sooner had Wijeyo landed with his 
 followers than he was met by a ' devo,' or god, who blessed them, 
 and tied a thread round the arm of each as a protection against 
 sorcery. Hence Wijeyo's deliverance from the sorceries practised by 
 his princess. 
 
 Pure water for the service of the temple is provided by a dripping 
 well, whose cool crystal drops fall from a fissure in the roof with cease- 
 less splash into a small tank on the rock pavement. 
 
 The third cave, though only about half the size of the last, con- 
 tains fifty-four images, including another wooden image of the 
 Rajah Kirti Sri Nissanga, and one of Buddha reclining, thirty feet 
 long. 
 
 The fourth and fifth are still smaller, but each contains a con- 
 siderable assortment of worshipful images, and the last, which is quite 
 modern, contains a Buddha thirty-five feet in length. 
 
 On various parts of the rock there are ancient inscriptions, one 
 of which, I was told, records, how 'the Sovereign Lord of Lanka, 
 Prakrama-Bahu Chakkravarti [i.e., the Lord of the Umbrellas], of the 
 dynasty of Kaalinga, the Heroic and Invincible Royal Warrior [who 
 reigned from a.d. 1153 to 1186], enriched the inhabitants, who had 
 become impoverished by inordinate taxes. To this end he relin- 
 quished his revenues for five years, bestowed on the people gifts of 
 land, cattle, and slaves, together with an annual donation of five times 
 his own weight in gold, silver, and precious stones. He restored roads 
 which had fallen into disuse, rebuilt the temples at Anuradhapura and 
 
 1 ' My Circular Notes,' vol. ii. p. 155. By J. F. Campbell. Macmillan. 
 
 2 ' In the Hebrides,' pp. 197, 297. By C. F. Gordon Cumming. Published by 
 Chatto & Windus.
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 245 
 
 many other places, and caused seventy-two statues of Buddha • in the 
 three postures [recumbent, sitting, and standing] to be placed within 
 these rock temples. These images were gilded, and seven lacs of 
 rupees [according to Maver's edition of Johnson's Dictionary, a lac is 
 one hundred thousand] were expended on a magnificent festival to 
 celebrate this event.' 
 
 In the same inscription the king ordains that ' when permanent 
 grants of lands are made to requite meritorious service, such behests 
 shall not be recorded on palm-leaves, which are liable to be destroyed 
 by rats and white ants, but shall be engraven on plates of copper, 
 so as to endure for ages.' 
 
 Three great dagobas at one time crowned the summit of this huge 
 rock, but they have wholly disappeared. A point of interest, however, 
 is a pool of water very near the summit, which is said never to fail, 
 even when in seasons of drought every water-spring far and near is 
 dried up. A few trees are dotted about the hill-top, affording a grate- 
 ful shade, and there is a small slope of short sun-scorched grass. 
 
 The view from the summit is very fine, overlooking avast expanse 
 of country — fertile lands pertaining to this temple, a sea of green 
 jungle dotted with bare dark rocks of the same character as Dambulla, 
 great tanks, the gigantic reservoirs constructed in olden days, fine 
 mountain-ranges, and sundry spots whose old historic interest appeals 
 to those versed in the semi-mythical early history of the Isle, in the 
 days of gods and heroes, and in its later wars. 
 
 Foremost amongst these is the wellnigh inaccessible rock fortress 
 of Sigiri, clearly seen, although distant about fifteen miles, as it rises 
 almost perpendicularly from the brink of a neglected tank encircled 
 with forest-trees. The lake is beautified by the red and white blossoms 
 of the lotus, but these are guarded by a legion of grim crocodiles. 
 The rock itself is a huge square crag towering 400 feet above the plain, 
 and is all bare except on the summit, which is crowned with stunted 
 vegetation. It bulges and overhangs so as to have made it exceed- 
 ingly difiicult of access in the first instance. 
 
 It is supposed to have been originally fortified by the aborigines 
 (whom the Singhalese always describe as ' Yakku,' or demons), but the 
 fortifications and other traces of habitation date from about a.d. 478, 
 
 1 The erection of seventy-two images and the gilding of the temple is generally 
 ascribed to Kirti Nissanga, who succeeded to the throne A.D. 1192, and whose image 
 is preserved in two of the caves, but on the Galpota or Stone Book at Pollonama there 
 is a reference to his having simply re-gilded the images.
 
 246 TIVO NAPPY VPIARS IN CEYLON 
 
 and are a memorial of King Kaasyapa the parricide, who, having 
 dethroned his father Dhatu Sena, stripped him naked, loaded him 
 with chains, and caused him to be built up in a wall, which was plas- 
 tered over with clay to hide all trace of this tomb of the living. 
 
 Kaasyapa then tried to murder his younger half-brother Mogallana, 
 but failed in the attempt, the latter escaping to India, whence he even- 
 tually returned to avenge his father. Meanwhile the parricide, haunted 
 by the remembrance of his crime, sought security by constructing 
 a dwelling or palace on this lonely crag, round the base of which he 
 erected a massive stone rampart, enclosing divers fortifications. 
 
 The ascent from the base to the summit is effected by a series of 
 artificially constructed galleries, dependent for their support on a 
 foundation of brickwork built into a groove which had previously 
 been cut spirally round the rock, to a depth of about four inches. 
 On this slender foundation, assisted by every available atom of natural 
 support, was built a platform about six feet wide, edged with a wall 
 about nine feet high, the whole coated with hard polished chunam, 
 once white, but now red from the action of water tinged with iron. 
 The galleries, which are haunted by innumerable bats and swallows, 
 are now in a very ruinous condition, and are connected here and there 
 by rickety bamboo ladders ; and the further ascent to the summit by 
 scarcely perceptible fissures on the face of almost perpendicular rock 
 is a thing to try the nerves of the hardiest cragsman. 
 
 The summit is a level of about an acre in extent, and here 
 Kaasyapa's palace must have stood, but of this, little if any trace 
 remains, a thick growth of jungle having taken possession of the 
 ground. Water was supplied by two tanks one 90 feet square by 
 about 1 5 feet deep, and the other 1 5 feet square by 6 feet deep. These 
 were apparently constructed to catch rain-water, but there is also a 
 natural spring near the summit, and the water-supply seems to have 
 been good. Kaasyapa, however, did not stand a siege here. For 
 eighteen years he lived as an ascetic lay devotee, striving to atone for 
 his crimes by showing favour to the priests. Then Mogallana returned 
 from India at the head of an army, and Kaasyapa came forth to give 
 him battle, and was slain by the hand of his own brother.' 
 
 1 Probably no other history more fully illustrates how 
 
 ' Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ' 
 than does that of Ceylon ; so very many of the kings reigned less than one year ere 
 they were murdered, or else were so weary of their own crimes that they committed 
 suicide. One was murdered on the very day of his accession. One died of strong 
 drink. Several, who were deposed by usurpers, had tlwir eyes pul out.
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 247 
 
 The fortified palace, constructed with such incredible toil, was 
 thenceforth abandoned to bears and leopards, owls and bats, the 
 people deeming it accursed, and haunted by demons. 
 
 The origin of the name Sigiri is disputed, some maintaining that 
 it should be Sikhari, a hill-fort ; the general impression, however, 
 being that it is a contraction of Singha-giri, ' the Lion's Rock ' (like 
 Singa-pore, ' the Lion's City '). Forty years ago an adventurous 
 traveller described the paintings of lions on the white chunam of the 
 great gallery, as white as if it were only a month old, though con- 
 structed nearly 1,400 years ago. It seems probable, however, that 
 that traveller drew on his imagination, as the chunam is now iron- 
 stained, and the only frescoes to be seen are several large human 
 figures, supposed to be of Buddha, in a hollow rock chamber 60 feet 
 above the gallery, with a sheer drop of 160 feet to the base of the 
 crag. 
 
 How the artist got there, and how he was supported in his perilous 
 position, were insoluble mysteries till June 1889, when Mr. Alick 
 Murray determined to solve the problem. This proved no easy 
 matter. The local chiefs and people absolutely refused to help in 
 any way, having been warned by the Buddhist priests that inevitable 
 destruction awaited any one who should dare to intrude into the 
 demon-guarded chamber. 
 
 Nothing daunted, Mr. Murray secured the services of some Tamil 
 stone-cutters from Southern India, who bored holes in the rock-face, 
 one above the other, and therein inserted iron jumpers, which were 
 secured with cement, and to these wooden staging was lashed. The 
 man of lightest weight was selected to make the necessary holes, but 
 after a while even he declared that it was impossible for him to 
 ascend any higher, but he added that, if he were allowed to devote three 
 days to fasting and prayer to his gods, he thought he might succeed. 
 This he accordingly did, and effectually overcame that difficulty. 
 
 But even when the rock chamber was reached, the slope of the 
 floor was found to be so steep that no one could even sit on it, so 
 there was no rest for the explorers till more iron stanchions were 
 driven in, and a wooden staging prepared, on which was erected a 
 platform, on which (notwithstanding a fierce wind which shook the 
 woodwork in the most alarming manner) Mr. Murray spent the live- 
 long day, lying on his back from sunrise till sunset, for a whole week, 
 patiently tracing the frescoes, which are painted on the roof and round 
 the summit of the cave.
 
 248 TI^P^O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 He found that these really represent thirteen female figures (others 
 have been obliterated by time and weather). These are mostly in 
 couples, each showing a very high-caste lady loaded with jewels, but 
 naked to the waist, and attended by a Tamil girl of darker colour, 
 and wearing exactly the same jacket and jewels still worn by girls of 
 the same race. These damsels are offering to their mistresses sacred 
 lotus-blossoms on a tray. The fact of these ladies being nude above 
 the waist points to their being natives of the Malabar coast, where 
 one race (the Nairs, I think) have adopted this singular badge of 
 nobility, and their high-caste women will on no account cover their 
 shoulders. So it would appear that a Singhalese king married a few 
 Nair princesses. 
 
 It was strange to be thus suddenly brought face to face with the 
 work of an artist of fourteen hundred years ago, the colouring almost 
 as fresh as when first laid on, and with a singular predominance of 
 green, a colour now rarely used by native artists. Here and there 
 pieces of plaster had fallen off, showing how the rock had been 
 prepared by being chiselled to a smooth surface, and then coated 
 with two layers of fine clay, the under layer being mixed with rice 
 husk, the upper layer very smooth. 
 
 All the time Mr. Murray was at work, a number of most interested 
 spectators, including a few village head-men and Buddhist priests, 
 watched at the foot of the rock, expecting to witness some awful 
 catastrophe, when the vengeful demons asserted themselves. On the 
 third day curiosity overcame prudence, and a minor chief asked Mr. 
 Murray whether he would protect him if he ventured to ascend to the 
 demon-haunted chamber. He was so amazed and delighted with all 
 he saw, that on his safe return to earth a young Buddhist monk found 
 courage to follow, on Mr. Murray's assuring him that it was really 
 quite safe ; and so, gathering up his yellow robes, he cautiously 
 ascended the first bamboo ladder, when a shout of warning from 
 friends below made him hesitate, and again appeal to Mr. Murray to 
 know whether he might really venture to beard the demons in their 
 cave. On a renewed assurance of safety from supernatural foes, he 
 clambered up, his countenance betraying how sore had been his mental 
 struggle. Then came the physical anguish of the descent : however, 
 that likewise was accomplished in safety ; and when the week was 
 ended, and all the tracings successfully secured, the many prophets 
 of evil were all compelled to admit that the demons must have taken 
 flight.
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 249 
 
 A point of some interest connected with Dambulla is, that the last 
 insurrection against British rule broke out at this place in 1848. It 
 was a small affair, stirred up by a few Kandyan chiefs and Buddhist 
 priests, and was chiefly remarkable as showing how very little influence 
 the latter possessed over the people, when not supported by the ruling 
 power. Though the insurgents numbered about four thousand, they 
 were quickly quelled by the Ceylon Rifles and part of the 15th Regi- 
 ment, who attacked them first at Matale and afterwards at Kurune- 
 galla, in each case routing them effectually. A few necessary execu- 
 tions followed, including that of a Buddhist priest, who was shot in 
 his robes, greatly to the disgust of some Europeans. His own 
 brethren, however, acknowledged the justice of his sentence, and 
 voluntarily declared that they did not consider the fact of his being 
 shot in his robes as any indignity to their order. We saw one of the 
 chiefs who had been concerned in this last struggle against foreign 
 rule — a very fine old man. 
 
 About sunset we returned to the rest-house, whence in the 
 evening we witnessed a pretty show of native fireworks, and the 
 burning of orange and blue lights in cocoa-nut shells, both on the top 
 of the rock and in the rest-house. 
 
 Early the next morning we drove ten miles to Ellagamuwa, where, 
 as usual, crowds of people had come some way to meet the Governor, 
 making the most appalling noise of tom-tom beating and other 
 evidences of rejoicing. There were the usual temporary huts hung 
 with calico, and very ornamental pandals (the arches of welcome). 
 The view from here of the blue Rita-gala hills is very beautiful, though 
 the foreground of dead-level paddy-fields laid out in small squares 
 like a chess-board is not attractive. 
 
 Though I speak of blue hills, Rita-gala is in fact an isolated 
 mountain-spur rising to a height of 2,506 feet, and specially interesting 
 as having been the last refuge of the ' Yakkos,' or aboriginal in- 
 habitants of the Isle, when invaded by the conquering Singhalese ; 
 consequently many legends attach to certain very ancient ruins on the 
 mountain. It is further interesting as being the northernmost moun- 
 tain of any importance in the Isle. Beyond its base commences the 
 great level extending over the northern half of Ceylon. We were 
 told that the view from the summit is very fine, and it is spoken of as 
 a desirable situation as a sanitarium. 
 
 About five miles to the west of Ellagamuwa lies the Kala-balalu- 
 wewa, or Kala-wewa, alias Kala-wapi, which is the second largest of
 
 250 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 the great tanks, or rather artificial lakes, of Ceylon, being thirty-two 
 miles in circumference, and formed by means of an embankment of 
 earth and huge blocks of stone, the whole about 60 feet in height and 
 20 feet wide at the top. Tennant said this was twelve miles long, 
 but more recent measurement says six miles, natural high ground doing 
 the rest. The spill-water, all of hewn granite, measures 260 feet in 
 length, 200 feet in width, and is about 40 feet high. 
 
 It was originally two distinct tanks, the Kala-wewa and the 
 Balalu-wewa, fed by different streams, the Dambulla-oya, the 
 Hawanweli-oya, and the Mirisgoni-oya. But the waters of the great 
 twin lakes contrived to effect a meeting, and now the great united 
 lake is known as the Kala-wewa, and the united waters of the three 
 rivers flow on as the Kala-oya, which enters the sea near Puttalam. 
 
 These grand reservoirs, in which was stored water fur the irriga- 
 tion of the whole Province, were constructed about the year a.d. 460 
 by King Dhatu-Sena, who was so horribly murdered by his own son. 
 On pretext of pointing out where his treasures were concealed, the 
 captive monarch was permitted to revisit it, and was sent thither in a 
 shabby cart with broken wheels, the driver of which, for very pity, 
 shared his meal of parched rice with the king. 
 
 On reaching the tank, he bathed in the beautiful lake he had made 
 for the good of his people, and having drunk of its waters, and having 
 conversed with his friend, the priest Mahanamo, he declared that this 
 friend and the great lake were the only treasures he possessed, and so was 
 carried back to Anuradhapura to meet his awful doom. In recording 
 this incident, Mahanamo, the priest, remarks that this living entomb- 
 ment of the king was the just retribution for his own impiety, in that 
 while making the embankment of the great tank, he therein buried a 
 priest who was so deeply absorbed in meditation that he could not 
 be aroused ; so the earth was heaped upon him, and he perished. 
 
 Of all the wonderful traces which remain in Ceylon of the work of 
 the mighty Singhalese kings, none are more impressive than those 
 of the great artificial lakes, and of the canals by which water was 
 carried thence to innumerable village tanks, and distributed accord- 
 ing to the need of each separate field. The perfection of the whole 
 system of irrigation, designed and carried out by the hydraulic 
 engineers of those ancient days, could scarcely be surpassed, and the 
 ingenuity and skill whereby the heavy rainfall of certain seasons was 
 secured, and the precious water treasured to save the thirsting land 
 in times of drought. And water is doubly precious under a burning
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 251 
 
 tropical sun, having apparently the same fertilising influence that the 
 richest manures could have in colder lands. 
 
 In all parts of the Island, in wildest solitudes and most unhealthy 
 jungles (where stagnant swamps and dense forests now cover the 
 plains, once fertile and rich with waving rice- fields), these ruined 
 tanks are found, of all sizes, from the small village tank to the great 
 artificial lake. These last were formed by erecting a vast embank- 
 ment of huge blocks of stone, strongly cemented, and covered with 
 turf — a mighty barrier of solid masonry — perhaps 100 feet wide at 
 the base, narrowing to 40 feet at the top, and furnished with mighty 
 sluices to regulate the escape of the water. 
 
 And then, when one of these large-minded kings took to this 
 sort of work, it was done in such a wholesale fashion, several of 
 these great tanks being perhaps constructed simultaneously in remote 
 districts. Thus King Maha-Sen, who about a.d. 275 constructed 
 the beautiful artificial Lake of Minery, near Polonarua, which is 
 twenty miles in circumference, also constructed sixteen large tanks, 
 including Kanthalay, near Trincomalee. 
 
 The gigantic tank of Padivil in the Northern Province (which is 
 marked on some maps as Vavuniya-vilan-kulam) has also been 
 attributed to him ; but an inscription on the sacred rock at Mehintale 
 records that this great lake was temple property at an earlier date. 
 It must have been by far the largest of all these ancient lakes, having 
 an area of fifteen miles : its dam is eleven miles long, 200 feet wide at 
 the bottom, 30 feet wide at the top, some parts being 70 feet high, and 
 the whole is faced by steps of large squared stones, many of them 
 12 feet in length. Many great stone blocks are finely sculptured.' 
 
 Due west from Padivil, on the coast of Manaar, are the stu- 
 pendous- ruins of the Giant's Tank, which (like Padivil) was designed 
 on a magnificent scale for the irrigation of that vast district known 
 
 ' Sir James Emerson Tennant states (vol. ii. pp. 501-508) that although it was the 
 dry season when he visited the Padivil-kulam, the water still covered an area of ten 
 miles in diameter, and the stream issuing from it by the great breach in the embank- 
 ment was about 300 feet broad, and so impetuous that the horses had difficulty in 
 crossing it. 
 
 Sir James gives a most fascinating description of the many thousands of water- 
 birds which he, arriving long before dawn, saw nesting on trees or among the swampy 
 sedges of this utter solitude, — tall flamingoes, herons, egrets, storks, ibises, and many 
 more, as also a vast colony of pelicans, who had built their heavy nests, each con- 
 taining three eggs, in the tops of tall trees. When the sun rose, all the birds soared 
 slowly away to the sea-shore, distant about twenty miles, there to seek their breakfast. 
 The lake was swarming with crocodiles hungrily watching for the fall of young birds.
 
 252 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 as 'The Wanny,' now chiefly arid jungle, but capable of being so 
 fertile were irrigation possible. At present such land as is cultivated 
 only returns about one crop in three years. With full irrigation it 
 would give two crops annually. The embankment of this ' Giant's 
 Tank ' is 300 feet wide at the base, and can be traced for fifteen 
 miles. A causeway of hewn granite, 15 feet high and 750 feet in 
 length, was to have connected the river with the feeding canal. 
 Enormous labour must have been expended on the whole, and the 
 result should have been the formation of a lake as large as Geneva. 
 But by some lamentable miscalculation of levels, the great canal by 
 which the waters of the Malwatte river were to have been led into 
 the lake carried them back to the channel of the river, and all the 
 toil and expenditure were proved to have been in vain. 
 
 So the people returned to live as best they could on the arid 
 land, and in a.d. 1791 the Dutch found no less than twenty-four 
 villages in the area of what should have been the lake. Strange to 
 say, the native records which so minutely detail all that was deemed 
 creditable in the acts of the kings, make no mention whatever of 
 this great abortive effort. Tradition ascribes it to a nameless king 
 of the fourteenth century, who, with the best possible intentions, 
 strove to emulate the good deeds of his predecessors. But in that 
 short lapse of time the hydraulic engineers had lost their cunning, 
 and so all alike reaped the meed of failure in mortification and 
 oblivion. 
 
 About the centre of the Isle, and due east from Kala-wewa, lies 
 Lake Minery, which was formed by diverting the waters of the Kara- 
 ganga, or, as it is now called, the Amban-ganga, by means of a dam 
 twenty-four miles in length, ranging in height from 40 to 90 feet, 
 and averaging 80 feet for many miles. This dam was repaired 
 about the year a.d. 1153 by King Prakrama Bahu I., who thus 
 formed a series of lagoons navigable by boats, which are supposed 
 to have been the celebrated ' Seas of Prakrama,' though that name 
 may have been applied to the multitude of tanks which he created, and 
 of canals by which rivers were diverted to these great reservoirs. He 
 is said to have constructed 1,407 tanks, besides 100 for the exclusive 
 use of the priests, and to have restored 1,395 • That, of course, 
 involves connecting canals and much other work. 
 
 Some of these must have been exceedingly ancient, the earliest 
 of which we have any certain information being the Bassawa- 
 kulam at Anuradhapura, which is supposed to have been constructed
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 253 
 
 about B.C. 500 by King Panduwasa, and was restored in 1867. 
 Probably next to this ranks the Tissawewa tank near Kattregam, 
 in the Southern Province, a great lake covering an area of about 
 3,000 acres, made about B.C. 307 by King Deveni-pia-tissa, and re- 
 stored in 1876. 
 
 The account of King Prakrama's enormous energy in regard to 
 these irrigation works, as also in the matter of building temples and 
 palaces, would be quite bewildering but for the knowledge that these 
 autocratic kings had the right and power to claim from all their 
 subjects a very large amount of free labour, or, as it was called, 
 Rajah-karia, ' King's service ' — a system which, of course, was often 
 very gravely abused, but which, when applied to work for the common 
 weal, such as this storing and distributing of precious water, had 
 certainly great advantages in a country where the cares of agriculture 
 do not claim more than half a man's working days. 
 
 Its necessity was proven by the fact that so soon as the strong 
 controlling hand was removed, these great works, which were for the 
 good of all, were grievously neglected. Probably the mischief 
 began long ago, when, owing to wars and other political causes, the 
 seat of Government was so frequently moved from place to place ; 
 and though the villagers must have remained to profit by the blessed 
 waters, attention to keeping the tanks in repair was doubtless relaxed, 
 and so ' little leaks ' were established, and sluices got out of order, 
 and general efficiency was impaired. 
 
 But it is certain that the reign of ruin set in in earnest when the 
 disorganising presence of Europeans became permanent, and the 
 finishing stroke was given in 1832, when (too hastily and without 
 fully understanding the character of the people, and the need of 
 exercising a certain amount of control for their own good) the British 
 Government proclaimed absolute freedom, and the total abolition of 
 Rajah-karia. 
 
 In this proclamation of freedom exception was made for the very 
 large ^ lands belonging to Buddhist and Hindoo temples, where 
 
 1 In Mr. Mitford's report for Sir Hercules Robinson, on the existing state of serf- 
 dom on temple lands in 1868, he says :-^ 
 
 ' The Order in Council by which in 1832 compulsory labour was abolished in Crown 
 villages, iy exceptiyig royal temple and private villages fro?n its advantages, is now 
 the strongest ground on which the existing state of servitude is built. Here is a great 
 wrong legalised. We found the despotic principles in existence, and superadded 
 British forms, and thus riveted THE CHAI.ns of this GALLING TYRANNY ON 
 ONE-THIRD OK THE POPULATION. 
 
 ' Under this system men are bought and sold with the land, agriculture and
 
 = 54 
 
 rirO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 the people continued in absolute serfdom to the priests, holding their 
 lands on the condition of cultivating those of the temples, and of 
 rendering all manner of other service, which included taking part in 
 idolatrous ceremonies, in some cases against the bidding of an 
 awakening conscience. Better would it have been for the people 
 had this exemption been reversed, and the only compulsory work 
 retained in some modified form been that for the upkeep of roads 
 and irrigation. 
 
 I have already shown (p. 65) that in 1870 an Act was passed to 
 enable temple serfs (in other words, the tenants of temple lands) to 
 pay an equivalent in money in lieu of rendering these services — an 
 Act which, however, from various causes, has not yet wrought the 
 expected deliverance. For one thing, the exemption of these lands 
 from paying grain-tax renders them peculiarly desirable holdings, so 
 that most tenants fear to take any step which would risk the loss of 
 their tenure. 
 
 As regards the roads, it was after a while found necessary for 
 their maintenance to require every man between the ages of eighteen 
 and fifty-five to work thereon for six consecutive days annually, or, as 
 an equivalent, to pay a sum of about two rupees. 
 
 Then, when the salvation of the country was found to depend on 
 the restoration of the ancient irrigation works, it was found positively 
 necessary so far to revive the old system that the men of each village 
 have been obliged to help in the reconstruction of their own par- 
 ticular tank, and are bound to take their annual share in its repair, 
 in proportion to the number of acres for which each requires 
 irrigation. Moreover, though paid labour was employed for the 
 restoration of the great Kala-wewa and its canal, the landowners who 
 profit thereby are now each required to give about fourteen days' 
 work annually to keeping the whole in repair. Of course, the 
 
 industry are checked, oppression is legalised, and Christianity prohibited. The 
 exaction of services is arbitrary. I have known instances of men working for three 
 months in the year, and others even for six months, during which time their own lands 
 were lying waste. Besides agricultural and menial tasks, each landholder's family was 
 allotted a portion of the temple service, such as repairing the temples and idols, carry- 
 ing the images at festivals, furnishing musicians, devil-dancers, &c. If a temple serf 
 should become a Christian, he could not, of course, perform any of these services in a 
 heathen temple, consequently he would lose his land. 
 
 ' / maintain that we have no right to hold any British subject in a position cam- 
 felling him to perform idolatrous ceremo>iies,ivith the alternative of ruin. . . . I have 
 often felt a blush of shame when obliged to decide cases against temple serfs, in violation 
 of tht rights of humanity and the first principles of justice.'
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 255 
 
 re-imposition of even this shadow of the old law, which had been so 
 rashly abolished, has called forth a certain amount of grumbling 
 from the men whose very lives and those of their families have 
 thereby been saved. 
 
 The immediate result of the abolition of compulsory ' service for 
 the king ' was the destruction at one blow of the whole machinery by 
 which great national works were kept up by the native rulers, for 
 when every man suddenly found himself absolutely free from all 
 necessity of taking any share in keeping up public works, although 
 a few individuals might do their part, the necessary combination 
 became impracticable, and tanks and watercourses very soon fell into 
 ruin, the perpetually recurring monsoon floods soon converting small 
 fissures into extensive breaches : thus the precious waters all ran to 
 waste. There was no reserve for seasons of drought, and the culti- 
 vation of rice was impossible. The tanks themselves and the 
 adjacent lands became unhealthy swamps, breeding poisonous 
 miasma ; and the ever-increasing unhealthiness of the districts under 
 these conditions compelled the villagers to disperse, and to make a 
 scanty living by the cultivation of such unwholesome grain as can be 
 grown on very dry soil— chiefly millet {Fanicum miliacceian) and 
 Kurukkan {Eleusine indicd). The latter bears a seed something like 
 clover, and the meal prepared from it makes tolerable porridge ; but 
 the natives use it chiefly in the form of most indigestible cakes, as 
 tough as leather. Pulse and kollu are also grains which grow on dry 
 soil, as also does gingelly, an oil-giving grain — which, however, 
 flourishes only on newly cleared forest-land, and speedily exhausts 
 the soil. 
 
 As to water, which is the only drink in the interior of the Isle 
 where cocoa-palms do not grow, the people were (and are still in 
 some districts) occasionally reduced to drinking mud from little pools 
 in which the buffaloes have wallowed. Sir John Douglas mentions 
 that, having to halt at one of these villages in the hottest season, he 
 asked for a bath, and the people laughed at the very idea. They 
 told him he could get some water if he sent six miles to fetch it. 
 This he did, and longed for the return of his water-carriers ; but 
 when at last they arrived the water they brought was so foul, and 
 smelt so bad, that, after filtering it six times through towels, he could 
 not bring himself to wash in it, and so sacrificed three bottles of soda- 
 water, and therein luxuriated, only wishing there were more of it ! 
 
 Unfortunately, poor Singhalese villagers cannot indulge in soda-
 
 256 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 water baths, and their consequent state of unavoidable filth (in these 
 jungle villages in the dry season), combined with bad air to breathe, 
 bad water to drink, and unwholesome and insufficient food, produces 
 a condition of utter debility, resulting too often in the frightful 
 disease of parangi, resembling leprosy — loathsome to behold, and 
 most terrible to the sufferer. In some districts the population has 
 been literally decimated by the scourge. 
 
 In the almost abandoned tank districts, luxuriant jungle rapidly 
 overspread the rich rice-fields, while the shallow waters became the 
 favourite haunt of all manner of wild-fowl. Here troops of elephants 
 and great herds of wild buffaloes, deer, p'gs, and other animals, came 
 to drink in the cool of the day. Grim crocodiles lay basking on the 
 shore ; monkeys of all sizes chattered and screamed among the 
 branches, and the jackals lent their music to the chorus. Peacocks 
 and golden orioles flashed in the sunlight ; great pelicans, tall white 
 cranes, and pink flamingoes stalked along among the sedgy shallows. 
 In short, these ruined tanks were each centres of attraction to sports- 
 men and naturalists. 
 
 I rejoice to speak of all this in the past tense, because, although 
 very much remains to be done, so much has been effected, in the 
 way of restoration, in the last fifteen years. About thirty years ago 
 Sir Henry Ward strongly urged the British Government to take the 
 matter in hand, and a commencement was made by restoring some 
 tanks in the Batticaloa country, in the heart of a settled population, 
 by whom their inestimable value was at once recognised. 
 
 Sir Hercules Robinson carried on the good work, and secured 
 an enactment for the annual expenditure of ^20,000 by Government 
 on irrigation work, to be repaid by the cultivators by payment of a 
 water-rate. Kanthalai, near Trincomalee, and Tissa-Maharama, in 
 the Southern Province — capable respectively of irrigating 10,000 and 
 15,000 acres — were next restored. These, till recently, were deemed 
 failures because the disheartened villagers could not shake off their 
 apathy and return to the cultivation of abandoned lands. So those 
 who grumbled at what seemed unremunerative outlay deemed their 
 prophecies of ill omen all fulfilled. Happily these proved to be only 
 deferred successes, for each of these great tanks now irrigates a vast 
 tract of luxuriant rice-land. 
 
 In 1867 Government called for a return of all the tanks in Ceylon, 
 and obtained a list of 4,903, many of which, of course, were small 
 village tanks, and the majority quite out of repair. The report for
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 257 
 
 the North Central Province in 187 i stated that out of 1,600 village 
 tanks not a single one had sluices, or was capable of containing 
 water to any extent. This was on the vast plain of Nuwara-Kalawiya, 
 around Anuradhapura, once so fertile as to have been known as the 
 granary of Ceylon, but where at that time rice (which to the Singhalese 
 is the equivalent of beef, mutton, and potatoes) was simply not to be 
 obtained. 
 
 When in the following year Sir William Gregory first visited this 
 once luxuriant district, and saw for himself the pitiful condition of 
 the people, few in number, dirty, diseased, and apathetic from semi- 
 starvation, having apparently lost all heart and hope, with character- 
 istic energy he resolved that their case must be taken up in real 
 earnest. At that time the North Central Province was little visited 
 by Europeans, the roads being mere tracks, and all the streams un- 
 bridged. It was sixteen years since any Governor had made his way 
 thither. 
 
 To secure a larger share of attention and care, Sir William sepa- 
 rated this great district from the Northern Province, and formed it 
 into the new North Central Province. (In like manner, a few years 
 later. Sir Arthur Gordon divided the Southern Province, creating the 
 new provinces of Sabaragamua and Uva, that those neglected regions 
 might receive a due share of recognition.) 
 
 In commencing work on Nuwara-Kalawiya, it was evident to Sir 
 William that the first necessity was to reconstruct the village tanks, 
 and this could only be done by the work of the villagers themselves, 
 every man on the earthworks of his own village tank. By the agency 
 of the village councils this was effected, each man being required to 
 work without remuneration for thirty days per annum, until the par- 
 ticular tank with which he is connected is completed. Government 
 undertaking to provide and construct free of cost to the village the 
 ironwork and masonry required for the sluice and waste- weir. By 
 the close of 1882 Mr. Fisher reported that, as the result of nine years 
 of the villagers' earthwork, 199 tanks had been restored, and that 
 Government had supplied 206 sluices. In May 1884 Sir ^^'illiam 
 Gregory was able to state at the Royal Colonial Institute in London 
 that, out of the total of 1,600 tanks, 1,200 were either repaired or in 
 })rocess of being so, a large number being already in such thorough 
 working order that when Sir William returned to revisit Ceylon, he 
 had the joy of beholding near every village a wide tract of well-culti- 
 vated and luxuriant crops, and of knowing that the people had home-
 
 258 TJJ'O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 grown rice in such abundance as to be far beyond their own powers 
 of consumption ; paddy — i.e., rice in the husk — actually selling at 
 5^. per bushel, whereas in Colombo, where the cost of freight has to 
 be added, its price ranges from is. Sd. to 2s. per bushel. But the 
 most surprising and delightful change was that of the people them- 
 selves. All the hopelessness had vanished, the skinny half-starved 
 children were fat and healthy, the horrible parangi had almost dis- 
 appeared, and the population was increased by the return of many, 
 anxious to share the blessings of abundant cheap food and compara- 
 tively good water. 
 
 But all these village tanks were dependent for their supply on the 
 rains, consequently in times of prolonged drought they must inevi- 
 tably fail. It was, therefore, a matter of the gravest importance to 
 secure a supply as nearly permanent as it is possible for any such to 
 be in the tropics ; and when Sir Arthur Hamilton-Gordon succeeded 
 to the office of Governor, he was deeply impressed with the absolute 
 necessity of yet more extended and systematic action in restoring the 
 full irrigation system of the old rulers. 
 
 The primary necessity was the restoration of the great Kala-wewa, 
 and of the Yddi Ela, or Giant's Canal, which is fifty-three miles in 
 length and forty feet wide, and by means of which water was carried 
 from the great reservoir of Kala-wewa to eighty village tanks along 
 its course, and ultimately to many more, and so flowed on to Anurad- 
 hapura, the ancient capital, where it supplied the three great tanks of 
 Tissa-wewa, Bassawa-kulam, and Bulan-kulam. A second great 
 canal carried water from the Balalu-wewa to the north-west. 
 
 At that time the beds of the great lakes, and of the canals, were, 
 in common with all the surrounding country, overgrown with the 
 densest forest of large trees, with such thick undergrowth that in • 
 many places a horse could not pass through it, and the only way in 
 which it was possible to get an idea of the country was by climbing to 
 a sort of ' crow's nest ' built in the top of a very tall tree. Of water 
 there was no trace. 
 
 The first thing to be done was to fell and burn all this dense 
 jungle, and then it became possible to see exactly what was neces- 
 sary. It was estimated that the cost of restoration would amount to 
 about 550,000 rupees. In point of fact the work was done for 
 510,000 rupees, and the sum originally named covered the cost of 
 making necessary roads and other items. 
 
 As a matter of course, the mere suggestion of such an expendi-
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANVRADHAPURA I'^iC) 
 
 ture on a sparsely peopled arid jungle, at a time when the colony 
 was in pecuniary difficulties, aroused strenuous opposition, to which 
 Sir Arthur turned a deaf ear, taking for his motto the old P^nglish 
 proverb, ' It's dogged as does it ' ; and so through all the storm of criti- 
 cism he carried the work steadily on, having good proof of how cer- 
 tainly irrigation affected both agriculture and sanitation, and how 
 much it had already accomplished in raising the people from a state 
 of misery and degradation. 
 
 Mr. levers, the acting Government agent, and Mr. Wrightson, 
 the engineer, worked heart and soul, the latter never leaving his post 
 for four years, notwithstanding repeated attacks of malignant fever. 
 All that time there was an average of six hundred men employed on 
 the tank and canal works. The breaches were repaired ; a new 
 spill -wall of solid granite and real EngUsh Portland cement, and vari- 
 ous regulating sluices, were constructed at the great lake and on the 
 canal. 
 
 Their work was not all plain sailing. In 1884 the drought was 
 so intense, that the officer in charge of the irrigation works was 
 obliged to suspend all operations except those of surveying and col- 
 lecting materials for future masonry work. No water could be ob- 
 tained for miles round, so it was impossible to assemble large bodies 
 of men. Even for small working parties, drinking-water had to be 
 carried several miles. The ground was so thoroughly baked that it 
 was like sun-dried bricks, and no 'mamotie' could make any impres- 
 sion upon it. 
 
 In the following year the difficulties were all the other way. 
 Heavy floods seriously endangered the half-finished earthworks, and 
 one breach in the embankment was so quickly enlarged by the 
 sudden breaking of the coffer-dams, that one of the working ele- 
 phants and his caretaker were swept away by the mighty rush of 
 waters, and it was feared that both were lost. Happily, after a 
 breathless interval, the great creature's legs appeared three or four 
 hundred yards lower down, and presently it contrived to get its head 
 above water, when, to the amazement of all, the driver was seen 
 clinging to the neck of the elephant, which eventually swam safely 
 ashore. 
 
 On February 22, 1888, Sir Arthur had the happiness of formally 
 opening the effectually restored works. 
 
 That was a scene much to be remembered by all who took part 
 in it. Close to the embankment of the clear blue lake was a camp 
 
 s 2
 
 26o Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CF.YLON 
 
 of over fifty white tents and temporary huts, about twelve feet square, 
 as sleeping quarters, besides large dining and refreshment rooms, and 
 reception rooms. These were all built of green boughs, thatched 
 with straw, and lined with white calico hangings. This was the 
 European camp. There was also a grand durbar-hall, somewhat 
 apart, which, though only temporary, was a really handsome build- 
 ing, with open sides, and pillars supporting a double roof, the 
 whole most gaily decorated with brightly coloured draperies, mats, 
 and graceful treasures of the forest, with a raised and carpeted dais 
 for the Governor. At night this was transformed into a fine dining- 
 hall, lighted by many Japanese lanterns — a most fairy-like scene, to 
 have sprung up in the heart of the desert jungle. 
 
 There was also abundant accommodation for natives, of whom 
 about three thousand assembled from far and near for this great oc- 
 casion of rejoicing, not only on account of the restoration of the tank, 
 but as a special celebration of the Queen's Jubilee. All provision 
 of 'good entertainment for man and beast' was made on the most 
 liberal scale, and perfect weather added all that was desired to this 
 gigantic picnic. (One luxurious detail in the caterer's provision 
 list was ten hundredweight of ice, brought from Colombo in perfect 
 condition !) 
 
 Of course there was a profusion of native decoration, one con- 
 spicuous inscription being, ' Hail, Sir Arthur Gordon, G.C.M.G., the 
 Restorer of Dhatu-Sen's Great Tank, the Kala-wewa.' The same 
 recognition was gracefully expressed in the address of the Singhalese 
 head-men, who prophesied that ' the great tank of Kala-wewa and its 
 magnificent canal will in the distant future carry the name of Arthur 
 Gordon down the river of Time, along with those of Sri Raja Dhatu- 
 Sen and Prakrama Bahu the Great.' 
 
 The members of the great picnic had assembled in the previous 
 week, the Governor's party arriving on Monday. On the following 
 afternoon there was a most picturesque reception of all the native chiefs 
 and head-men in the fine durbar-hall, and at sunset the foundation- 
 stone of a commemorative monument was laid by the Governor in 
 the name of the Most Holy Trinity. 
 
 The Buddhist priests, however, had previously had their full 
 share in the ceremonial, in the manner most calculated to impress 
 the native mind, a group of about forty priests being assembled in 
 the durbar-hall to open proceedings by a special chant of welcome 
 to the Governor. Their yellow robes, and the gorgeous dresses of
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 261 
 
 the Kandyan chiefs and the more statuesque village head-men, min- 
 gling with other very varied costumes, combined to make an altogether 
 unique scene in that long-desolate region, as they stood on the banks 
 of the blue lake in the golden light of the setting sun, which glorified 
 the great sea of forest, and the beaudful distant Matale hills. 
 
 Then a great procession was formed of all Government officials, 
 gorgeous chiefs and richly caparisoned elephants, torch-bearers, 
 devil-dancers, men dressed as dancing-girls, noisy musicians, and 
 natives of every degree. The aforesaid elephants had earned a good 
 right to take part in the procession, having by their strength and 
 sagacity lent valuable aid to the workers. The great embankment was 
 illuminated by long lines of fairy lights ; then followed much feasting 
 of tired and hungry people, with fires blazing in every direction, and 
 all the picturesque details of a jungle camp ; and finally, the 
 memorable day ended with displays by wonderfully apparelled Sing- 
 halese dancers and Tamil actors. Conspicuous among the latter 
 was a company who had come from Jaffna, in the far north of the Isle, 
 and who performed a pathetic Sanskrit drama called ' Arichandra ' 
 (the Martyr for Truth), showing how an ancient Indian king had sold 
 his wife, his only son, and finally himself, to a man of the lowest 
 caste, rather than tell a lie. That certainly must have occurred in 
 pre-historic times, judging by the prevalence of unblushing perjury in 
 the present day ! 
 
 There was also a very successful display of fireworks, which were 
 let off from the end of the bund, blending with the silvery moon- 
 light which illumined the twin lakes and the surrounding forests, all 
 combining to form a lovely scene. 
 
 At the same time that this grand work was being accomplished, 
 smaller details in the great irrigation scheme were being vigorously 
 pushed on, and no less than two hundred village tanks in the North- 
 western and North Central Provinces were restored and provided 
 with sluices in the course of 1887-88. Thus it is hoped that new^ 
 life will be restored to one district after another, till the whole land 
 ' shall stand so thick with corn that it shall laugh and sing.' With 
 much practice the work of tank restoration has become very much 
 simpler and cheaper than it was when first tried, one very important 
 reduction being due to the invention by Mr. A. Murray, Provincial 
 Engineer, of how to make sluice pipes of concrete or baked clay, in- 
 stead of the expensive iron sluices which were used at first. Thus 
 in the year 1890 alone, 300 tanks were restored, and 500 sluices were
 
 262 nVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 provided at a very much lower figure than half that number would 
 have cost fifteen years ago. 
 
 In the report of the Central Irrigation Board, it is stated that 
 between the years 1850 and 1889 there have been restored 59 large 
 tanks and 2,250 small ones. Two hundred and forty-five anicuts 
 have l)een constructed, and 326 irrigation channels have been con- 
 structed or repaired, making a total length of 699 miles. 
 
 Within the three years immediately following its completion, 
 Kala-wewa fully justified its restoration. For five successive seasons 
 were the fields so abundantly irrigated that heavy crops were reaped 
 twice a-year, in striking contrast with the fields belonging to villages 
 dependent on rainfall, where, in consequence of an insufficient water- 
 supply, even the ' Maha ' or great crop was very poor, and cultivation 
 for the ' Yala ' season was not even attempted. 
 
 But as the drought continued during two years, the rivers by which 
 alone Kala-wewa is fed ceased to flow, and in September 1890 the 
 great reservoir was almost dry— only a few shallow pools remained in 
 the bed of the grand lake, and all the lesser tanks wijre either hard- 
 baked soil, or at best contained a few puddles of black liquid mud 
 which the wretched inhabitants scooped up in gourds — perhaps 
 laboriously collecting about a cupful at a time, as it slowly trickled into 
 exhausted wells. Rice-growing was impossible — the villagers had to 
 return to the cultivation of kurukkau, and very soon the terrible old 
 story was repeated. Foul water to drink and scanty unwholesome 
 food, together with the unavoidable filth of having no water for bathing 
 or for washing clothes, and that in fierce tropical heat, produced a 
 renewed outbreak of the terrible disease parangi, which once again was 
 seen on every side. 
 
 Even in view of the good already done, there were not lacking 
 murmurers who could only see in all this a proof that, after all the ex- 
 penditure, the great tank had failed to keep up the water-supply. To 
 these came an answer from one ' who, when the restoration was under 
 discussion, had strongly opposed it, but who confessed that he had 
 been mistaken, and was now convinced of the wisdom of what had 
 been already done, and the incalculable benefits certain to accrue ere 
 long. 
 
 He pointed out that when there are two consecutive years without 
 rain, many rivers cease to flow, and that the Matale rivers had actually 
 not run since Kala-wewa was completed. The Malwatu-oya, which is 
 
 ' The Editor of the ' Ceylon Observer.'
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 263 
 
 the chief river in the whole of this great district, had, for the second 
 time in the memory of the Hving, been quite dry, and had never 
 flowed in 1890. Moreover, springs which had never before been 
 known to fail had dried up. Nevertheless, so well had Kala-wewa 
 stored every drop of precious water which reached it (rising from 3 feet 
 to over 15, under the influence of a single rains-torm in which 18 inches 
 of rain fell), that five consecutive harvests had been secured, and 
 that but for these (not to speak of the supply of good water for man 
 and beast) the North Central Province might as well have been at 
 once abandoned to the bears, for its population would have speedily 
 altogether vanished. Could the restoration work be deemed a 
 failure because, in a year of almost unprecedented drought, the feed- 
 ing rivers had failed to supply it ? It had been shown to have a 
 storage capacity sufficient, in a year of good rainfall, for the irrigation 
 of 20,000 acres, or in a year when it was called upon to supplement a 
 deficient rainfall, for 10,000 acres. The object, therefore, to be aimed 
 at was to secure the water of a perennial stream which might keep it 
 full ; and this, it is hoped, can be effected without excessive outlay. 
 Moreover, every foot added to the height of the embankment would 
 increase the storage capacity of the lake. 
 
 In Mr. levers' report on the North Central Province in 1890, he 
 states that, but for the restoration of the elaborate system of irrigation 
 works, enabling the cultivators to utilise the scanty supplies of rain 
 which fell, a grievous famine must have swept away the already meagre 
 population.^ He says: 'In calculating the cost of the restoration 
 works, we must always regard them in the aspect of insurance against 
 famine, and the fatal fever which ever follows in the wake of famine. 
 The question is one of money expenditure, against the extinction of 
 human life, and the reversion of territory into desolation.' 
 
 Even as I write, news reaches me of the heavy rainfall at Anurad- 
 hapura in May 1 891— nine inches in a week. The rivers Malwatu- 
 oya and Mirisgoni-oya were overflowing, the waters rising fast in 
 Kala-wewa, Tisa-wewa, and Bassawakkulam, while several village 
 tanks had burst. The people were rejoicing in the certainty of a mag- 
 nificent Yala harvest. 
 
 Year by year improvements of all sorts are progressing, one item 
 being the planting of many thousands of palms and useful timber- 
 trees all along the course of the great canal. In. short, there is every 
 reason to hope that the restoration of the great system of irrigation 
 
 ' 70,000 persons.
 
 264 ^^'^^"O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 will do more for Ceylon than even its original construction. What 
 that first change was, we gather from the old chronicle, which tells 
 how, when Wijeho, the Indian conqueror, landed with his followers, 
 the friendly princess fed them with rice which had l>een obtained from 
 wrecked ships. But after the completion of the irrigation works, rice 
 became so abundant, that the large surplus appears to have been 
 exported to the mainland. It was, however, reserved for foreigners ' 
 to insist on the multiplication of cocoa and palmyra palms, which now 
 form so important a part of the national diet. 
 
 The bed of the great lake and the Oiant Canal were not the sole 
 traces of ancient days which lay so long hidden in the dense forest. 
 At one end of the embankment stands a dagoba of the usual bell 
 shape, about fifty feet high, said to contain the jawbone of Buddha. 
 (How carelessly he must have been cremated !) Round it are four 
 altars, and near it are the ruins of a preaching-hall and of a monastery, 
 with sculptured stones guarding the entrance. The dagoba is ap- 
 proached by twelve stone steps, on each of which is an inscription 
 now illegible, but said to be in the Nagara character. It is supposed 
 that this great relic-shrine was built of bricks taken from the ancient 
 ciiy wall, when, in the twelfth century, the great king, Prakrama 
 Bahu I., rebuilt the chief monuments in this deserted city. 
 
 This place is called Vigitapura, ' the town of Vigita ' (so named 
 after a relation of King Wijeyo, the leader of the original Singhalese 
 invasion), and dates from about 500 B.C., having been a stronghold and 
 a place of note ere Prince Anuradha had founded the mighty city 
 which bears his name,^ and which lies at a distance of about thirty- 
 five miles, as the crow flies. This, by the way, is a contested deriva- 
 tion, as it has generally been assumed that the name was Anu-rajah- 
 pura, and meant ' the City of the Ninety Kings,' who reigned here from 
 the date of its foundation, about 500 B.C. to a.d. 726, and of whom 
 
 1 See Chapter xx. 
 
 ^ Wijeyo having repudiated his island-wife and her children in favour of an Indian 
 princess (see p. 244), found himself without an heir, the sovereignty devolving on his 
 nephew Panduwaasa, who likewise sought a bride from India. She arrived escorted 
 by six stalwart brothers, who settled in various parts of Ceylon, Vigita and Anuradha 
 founding the cities which bore their names. 
 
 It is stated in the Mahawansa that Anuradhapura was so called on account of its 
 having been the settlement of Anuradho, and also because it was founded under the 
 constellation of Anuradho. 
 
 The still more ancient chronicles of the Dipavamsa say that the city was founded 
 by the minister who was called after the asterism. Knowing the immense reverence 
 with which the Singhalese have ever regarded the stars and their interpreters, the 
 astrologers, this statement seems to leave no room for further discussion.
 
 FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA 265 
 
 Emerson Tennant gives a complete list. But as the city bore the 
 name of Anuradha through all these centuries, we need scarcely assume 
 that this was given in prophetic reference to ninety future kings. So 
 this derivation might well be deemed an exploded fallacy ; but, as we-- 
 all know, such die hard. 
 
 The ancient annals record that Vigitapura was surrounded by a 
 triple battlement, and entered by a gate of iron. Its capture (about 
 B.C. 160) was a most picturesque incident. It had been seized by 
 Malabar invaders, and the Singhalese, led by King Dutugemunu, 
 besieged the usurpers. For months the rocky fortress held out ; 
 then it was determined to carry it by assault, and the famous War- 
 Elephant, Kadol, was directed to charge the eastern gate. 
 
 On he rushed, through a pitiless hail of large stones, spears and 
 arrows, which were hurled at him from the walls. But on his at- 
 tempting to charge the gate, he met with a still warmer reception — 
 one very familiar in the medieval warfare of Britain in the defence of 
 Border-keeps, namely showers of molten lead poured down from the 
 battlements above the gateway. 
 
 This proved too much for even so docile and plucky an elephant 
 as Kadol, who, refusing to listen to the voice of his mahout, fled 
 precipitately, and sought refuge and alleviation for his cruel burns 
 by immersion in the cool waters of a neighbouring tank (not Kala- 
 wewa, of course — it was constructed six hundred years later). 
 
 After a while his pain lessened, and his wounds were dressed. 
 Then his whole body was protected by a thickly padded coat, and 
 over that a suit of armour made of plates of copper. Thus equipped, 
 he was once more induced to face the molten lead, and rushing to 
 the assault, he succeeded with the sheer strength of his mighty head 
 in bursting open the gate, whereupon the besieged were compelled to 
 submit. 
 
 I have already alluded ' to that chivalrous duel between Dutu- 
 gemunu and Etala, Prince of Mysore, when the latter was slain, and 
 the Malabars defeated before the walls of Anuradhapura. 
 
 All through the surrounding jungle are pillars and ruins, sug- 
 gestive of much that may yet reward patient excavation. Below the 
 lake, and crossing the bed of the Kala-oya, a path has been cut for 
 two and a half miles through dense forest to the summit of a low 
 hill crowned by a great square mass of rocks. In ancient days 
 temples and houses for priests were built up in the fissures between 
 
 ' P. 243.
 
 266 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 the rocks, and this Aukana Viharc must have been a place of great 
 fame. 
 
 Here in utter soh'tude stands a gigantic statue of Buddha, with 
 the right hand raised to bless the worshippers who have so long 
 forsaken this shrine, and (as is the case in all the images I have 
 specially noticed) wearing the robe so as to leave the right shoulder 
 bare, in the manner which distinguishes the priests of the Siamese 
 sect from the purer Buddhists of Burmah. 
 
 This huge statue, hewn from the solid granite crag by order of 
 King Prakrama Bahu, is 39 feet 9 inches in height, and the colossal 
 foot measures 7 feet 8 inches in length. The big toe is i foot 4 
 inches in length and 9 inches wide ! It was accidentally discovered 
 by a sportsman while following the track of a herd of wild elephants. 
 A priest, whose solitude was shared only by one pupil, made his 
 home among the rocks, devoting his own existence and training his 
 young companion to striving after the attainment of that state of 
 perfection which consists in the total extinction of all care for and 
 interest in anything except one's own progress in this laudable effort 
 — and all this in order to obtain the final great reward of Nirvana, 
 which is the highest ideal of every devout Buddhist, and of which 
 the most accurate description is said to be the condition of a 
 FLAME WHICH HAS BEEN BLOWN OUT — a poor Substitute indeed for 
 Christ's gift of Eternal Life in the conscious gladness of 
 H[s Presence. 
 
 CHAPTER Xn 
 
 anuradhapura 
 
 Factory of cement pipes — Tiripane — Galkulum — Ruanweli Da^oba — The Abayagiria 
 — Thuparama Dagoba — Jetawanarama Dagoba — Temple of the Tooth — Tomb 
 and relic dagobas— Square and circle building material — Peacock Palace— Brazen 
 Palace — Successive capitals— The Sacred Ark— Stone bulls— Pilgrims' tents — The 
 sacred Bo-tree. 
 
 Continuing our drive through the jungle (occasionally passing 
 through fine forest, and sometimes crossing a bit of open plain with 
 rice-fields), we came to Maradankadawalla, where we spent the night, 
 and where, in addition to the usual deafening tom-toming and 
 shrieking of shrill pipes, we were favoured with an exhibition of most
 
 ANURADHAPURA 267 
 
 repulsive barbaric dancing. Here, and also at Ellagamua, we were 
 told that the tom-toming is considered equal to the best French 
 drumming — in which case I can only say, may I never be compelled 
 to hear either ! 
 
 In 1890 a valuable industry was started at Maradankadawalla — 
 namely, the manufacture of cement concrete pipes for road culverts 
 and for sluices, similar to those now made in the modern city of 
 Anuradhapura, the cost of transport being saved by establishing 
 these factories as near as possible to new centres of work. It is 
 encouraging to those who have so energetically promoted the work 
 of restoration, to learn that in this district the villagers have of their 
 own accord commenced the restoration of sixty abandoned Govern- 
 ment tanks, each of which will become the centre of a new village 
 and careful cultivation. 
 
 On the following morning we drove early to the Tiripane Tank, 
 which is like a pretty natural lake, surrounded by grassy land and 
 forest, and then on to Galkulum, altogether eleven miles. There we 
 found graceful arches, and a most picturesque camp of temporary 
 huts in the jungle, the breakfast house being quite a fine room. All 
 the handsome white-humped oxen grazing near their respective 
 large thatched waggons, and the groups of servants and drivers 
 cooking under the shady trees, combined to make a most interesting 
 scene. 
 
 In the afternoon (leaving the main road, which runs due north and 
 south from one end of the isle to the other) we rode the remain- 
 ing ten miles by a bridle-path, through fine jungle till we reached 
 the far-famed pre-Christian city — the wonderful Anuradhapura. 
 
 The Government Agent's pleasant house had been prepared for 
 the reception of the Governor's party, and its approach embellished 
 by sundry fine pandals of jungle treasures, and a great display of 
 coloured calico. Here we found ourselves in the very heart of the 
 ruins of the once mighty capital — ruins totally unlike anything which 
 I have seen in other countries. For my own part, the feeling they 
 inspire is not so much admiration as wonder and bewilderment, as one 
 wanders in every direction, walking or riding, only to come to more, 
 and more, and more ruins, — ruins wrought by war and by ruthless 
 treasure-seekers, but far more extensively and efiectually by the silent 
 growth of vegetation, which, fastening into every neglected crevice, 
 has overthrown massive masonry, which, but for these insidious 
 parasites, might have defied time.
 
 268 TIFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Two characteristics are specially striking : the incalculable 
 multitude of tall monoliths — not rude stone monuments, but accu- 
 rately hewn pillars of stone or granite, which in some cases must 
 evidently have supported roofs, or some form of building ; while a 
 great number, capped with a beautifully sculptured crown, form the 
 ornamental surroundings of the Cyclopean dagobas or relic-shrines, 
 which are the most prominent features of the whole place. These 
 are gigantic masses of solid brickwork, built in the form of a half-egg 
 or a bell, and crowned with a sort of spire called a tee, which 
 symbolises the honorific umbrella. These huge piles are estimated 
 to contain millions of cubic feet, and somewhere near the summit of 
 each a secret chamber was constructed, wherein was deposited some 
 worshipful fragment of Buddha himself, or of one of his saints, sur- 
 rounded by costly offerings. 
 
 The means of access to this chamber was known only to the 
 priests, but it is recorded in the book of the chronicles of Ceylon, 
 the Maha-wanso, that when, about b.c. i6i. King Dutugemunu had 
 built the Ruanweli dagoba, he ascended to the summit by means of 
 a temporary winding staircase, and thence descended into the sacred 
 chamber, wherein he deposited the precious casket containing the 
 relic, whatever it was, and various other treasures. 
 
 This Ruanweli or ' Golden Dust ' dagoba is close to the house in 
 which we lived, so it afforded the first and ever-present impression — 
 a huge conical mass of crumbling red brickwork, partly veiled by 
 quite large trees, which have grown up from seeds dropped into 
 crevices all over the building, and have somehow contrived to obtain 
 not only a footing but a living in that seemingly unnourishing soil. It 
 is believed to have been originally 270 feet high, but is now only 
 189, and is crowned by an ornamental sort of spire, which I suppose 
 must have been added at some time of restoration. 
 
 It stands in the centre of a granite pavement, forming a square 
 platform, which measures 500 feet in every direction. It is raised 
 on a second platform, likewise square, and round the upper square 
 you can still trace the broken fragments of what was once a whole 
 regiment of elephants, which, like the huge shrine itself, were all 
 coated with the smoothest cream-coloured chunam, like polished 
 marble. The old chronicles say that each of these elephants was 
 originally provided with real ivory tusks : if this were so, tusked ele- 
 phants must have been more abundant in Ceylon in those days than 
 in the present century ! There are also several large stone statues
 
 o < 

 
 ANURADHAPVRA 269 
 
 of ancient kings and saints, and a small temple, surrounded by a 
 frieze of grotesque figures in high relief. 
 
 King Dutugemunu had previously built the Miris-wetiya dagoba, 
 to commemorate his victory over Prince Elala, and as he pitied 
 his people, burdened as they had been by long wars, he refused 
 to avail himself of his right to employ their forced labour. So he 
 paid all his workers at a very liberal rate, and perhaps for that 
 reason his building did not progress quite so fast as it might other- 
 wise have done. Besides, he had many great works on hand, one 
 of which was the erection of the Great Brazen Palace for the 
 priests. 
 
 At all events, he did not live to complete his ' Golden-Dust ' 
 relic-shrine, so his devoted brother, Saidai-tissa, had a framework of 
 wood made on the summit, and covered it with white cloth, that his 
 dying eyes might behold it as it would appear when finished. The 
 king was carried round the great building, and then laid down upon 
 a carpet, that he might die gazing on this work which the priests told 
 him was so meritorious. But in the hour of death the great king 
 could find no comfort in any of the good deeds extolled by the priests, 
 but only in recalling some acts of unselfish kindness known only to 
 himself. A large slab of granite, surrounded by small pillars, marks 
 the spot where the king lay in those last hours. A ruinous mound 
 at a considerable distance is pointed out as his tomb. 
 
 It is said that in his last hours the king spoke somewhat bitterly 
 of the state of absolute slavery to the priests in which he had lived 
 all his life, an instance thereof commonly quoted being the erection 
 of the Miris-wetiya dagoba, of which it is averred that he built it as 
 a penance for having on one occasion so far forgotten his rule of 
 giving the priests a share of everything, that he had eaten his curry, 
 with the usual accompaniments of chillies and sambal (Miris-wetiya), 
 without setting aside a portion for the priests ! However, as I have 
 just mentioned, a more plausible origin is assigned for the erection 
 of this monument. 
 
 A Siamese prince has recently provided funds for the restoration 
 of this dagoba (whether in memory of the king's atonement anent 
 the curry-stuff, or of his victory over the Malabar invaders, I cannot 
 say). It is said that the sculptures and tracery on the three chapels 
 connected with this dagoba, now exposed to view for the first time 
 in the present century, are the most delicate and artistic that have as 
 yet been disinterred. But the addition of some handsome brick
 
 270, TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 arches, far up the sides, are criticised as being an incongruous though 
 effectual method of arresting the process of disintegration. 
 
 The native chronicles give minute details of the building of the 
 Ruanweli dagoba, and of the enormous labour expended on prepar- 
 ing a foundation capable of sustaining so ponderous a weight. It 
 was dug to the depth of a hundred cubits, and filled with round 
 stones, which were trampled by the largest elephants, their feet being 
 protected by leather boots. These stones were embedded in clay, 
 and over them was poured a layer of cement, then of sandstone, and 
 over all were laid great plates of iron and of brass. 
 
 After the king's death, his brother, who succeeded to the throne, 
 surmounted the great edifice with a spire of glass as a protection 
 against lightning. The great damage was done about the year a.d. 
 1 2 14 by Maagha, a ruthless treasure-seeker, who, in his determination 
 to reach the relic-chamber, tore down all the upper part of the struc- 
 ture, which accounts for its present reduced height, 
 
 I found a capital point whence to sketch this huge red ruin, veiled 
 with green and grey foliage, with a wonderful foreground of a multi- 
 tude of handsome stone pillars with elaborately sculptured square 
 capitals — some upright, some leaning, others fallen and half over- 
 grown with trailing vines— -and overshadowed by fine trees with 
 quaintly twisted stems. 
 
 In the distance, to the left of the Ruanweli dagoba, towered 
 another — the Abayagiria dagoba, or Fortress of Safety, originally the 
 greatest of all these monstrous piles, its full height having been about 
 405 feet {i.e., fifty feet higher than St. Paul's) and its circumference 
 1,130 feet ! Its height is now considerably reduced, but the square 
 platform on which it stands still covers an area of eight acres ! And 
 around it are the ruins of various chapels and other buildings con- 
 nected with a great college of priests; and among the ruins are many 
 finely sculptured stones, a gigantic seven-headed cobra, and sundry 
 flowers and figures. All this was the work of King Walagambahu, 
 who thus {v:C. 89) commemorated the expulsion of the Malabar in- 
 vaders and his own recovery of the throne. 
 
 A few years ago the Government explorers tunnelled right into 
 the heart of this huge 'Fortress of Safety,' through 200 feet of solid 
 brickwork, because of a tradition that therein were buried very ancient 
 books inscribed on metal plates. But on reaching the jealously 
 guarded secret chamber, nothing whatever was found save a few 
 beads, of no value beyond that due to their antiquity. The prisoners

 
 ANURADHAPURA 271 
 
 who were employed on this work of excavation, and on tlic restoration 
 of the summit tower, have left rude steps along the side of the brick- 
 work by which it is now possible to ascend to a height of 231 feet 
 above the i)latform— Z.^., 549 feet above sea-level — which, amid such 
 very level surroundings, secures a wide-spread view in every direction 
 over the wide expanse of park, land, and forest, dotted with the huge 
 monuments of olden days, glimpses of stone pillars, and of glistening 
 lakes and tanks, and bounded on the one side by the blue Ritigala 
 and Matele hills, and on the other by Mihintale, the sacred mountain, 
 so rich in ruins and in legends. 
 
 I found another fascinating spot for a very comprehensive sketch 
 — seated beneath an overhanging tree whose roots were all entwined 
 with a flight of beautifully sculptured steps, quaint animals, and other 
 carved stones, which, with a couple of dark miniature dagobas to the 
 left, formed an effective foreground for the really beautiful Thuparama 
 dagoba, which stands on a raised mound approached by a fine flight 
 of steps, and surrounded by 128 most elegant slim white columns 
 with beautifully sculptured capitals. They are in three circles, the 
 fifty-two nearest the dogoba being twenty feet high : all of these are 
 monoliths. The great building itself was cleared of jungle, restored 
 and recoated with chunam about sixty years ago. It is crowned by 
 a gigantic fee or spire, apparently representing seven honorific um- 
 brellas, piled in the manner still realistically done in Eurmah ; and 
 the eye is carried still higher by a group of tall palmyra palms, while a 
 great temple-tree loaded with creamy fragrant blossom stands in relief 
 against a background of dark foliage. 
 
 Then to the left, on lower ground, another stairway, with more 
 quaint sculptured beasts and figures, leads up to a group of monoliths 
 (two of which still support a third like a capstone). Here stand a 
 group of pillars with most curiously sculptured capitals, quite unlike 
 any others in the neighbourhood. They are described as 'cuneiform 
 mouldings,' but some prosaic person has compared them to a gigantic 
 double tooth with fangs ! — that image being suggested by the fact 
 that this is indeed the original Dalada Maligawa, or Palace of the 
 Tooth, having been the first of the many resting-places of the famous 
 Tooth of Buddha, of which, as also of the many palaces erected for it 
 in the course of its wanderings in Ceylon, I have already spoken, so 
 need only add that this building, where it was welcomed in the first 
 instance, was erected by King Kirti Sri Megaha-warna in A.ri. 311. 
 
 Fa-Hian, the Chinese traveller who visited Ceylon about a.d. 413,
 
 272. TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 gives a wonderful account of the gorgeous ceremonials in honour 
 of the Sacred Tooth — showing how, after great festivities, it was 
 carried in procession to its summer home in the mountains, along a 
 road so thickly strewn with flowers that the whole air was perfumed. 
 Then strange miracle- plays were enacted, representing the chief 
 events of Buddha's life, with appropriate scenery and costumes, and 
 introducing figures of elephants and stags so delicately coloured as 
 to be scarcely discernible from life. 
 
 Strange, is it not, to find these curious religious plays in favour 
 wellnigh two thousand years ago ! 
 
 As I have frequently referred to my selection of scenes for 
 'Comprehensive Sketches,' I may mention that in all my travels, 
 from the Himalayas to the remotest corners of the South Seas, I 
 have always carried, in addition to a considerable variety of smaller 
 sketching-blocks, one large sheet of galvanised zinc, turned over at 
 the edges to give additional strength, and measuring 31 by 23 inches. 
 On this (no matter how tired at night, in tent or in res.t-house, where 
 very often my large sheet of American waterproof, laid on the floor, 
 formed my only sponging-table) I stretched a fresh sheet of drawing- 
 paper as soon as it was possible to remove the last sketch, which 
 was then laid with its predecessors in a flat tin box, proof against 
 rain, white ants, and other foes. 
 
 The large zinc block was pinned up in white cloth, and strapped 
 up in the aforesaid waterproof, which was the carpet on which I sat 
 while sketching. I found that, from not being cramped for space, I 
 could work much more rapidly, and produce a far more comprehen- 
 sive and realistic picture, than by smaller studies of separate portions. 
 In every case I always devoted several hours to most careful pencil- 
 drawing, in order to secure accuracy of detail, before indulging in 
 the joy of colour. 
 
 I think I have alluded elsewhere to the impossibility of preserving 
 drawing-paper for water-colour painting in the damp tropics. The 
 rapid development of mildew is so inevitable, that the artist has no 
 alternative but just to make the best of it, and by long experience I 
 found that the only thing to do was, just before beginning to colour, 
 to wash over the whole paper with pure water. Then when great 
 stars of mildew revealed themselves, I fed each hungry fungus with 
 a good brushful of white paint. In colouring it is necessary to avoid 
 these patches as much as possible, or work over them finely with a 
 very dry brush. By observing these precautions I have produced
 
 ANURADHAPURA 
 
 273 
 
 many effective pictures on paper, which at first sight seemed ab- 
 solutely hopeless, but on which now no one would suspect the 
 presence of the once rampant mildew. At the same time, my rash 
 attempt to ' improve ' a sketch done in the tropics, by a wash of colour 
 or even of water, will inevitably reveal countless troublesome stars 
 and patches, previously invisible. 
 
 To return to the Thuparama dagoba, which is the oldest and most 
 venerated of all these great buildings. It was built by King Dewan- 
 anpia-tissa, ' the Delight of the Gods,' who ascended the throne 
 B.C. 307, and having obtained possession of Buddha's right collar-bone, 
 proceeded to build this wonderful shrine for its reception. (I cannot 
 refrain from reiterating how culpably careless were poor Prince 
 Gautama's cremators ! We have seen the dagoba at Kala-wewa 
 purporting to contain his jawbone, while another at Bintenne was 
 erected b.c. 164 to contain a bone from his thorax.) The height of 
 the Thuparama dagoba is about 63 feet. 
 
 The slim monolithic columns all round it are peculiarly elegant, 
 though unmeaning except as ornaments. A similar arrangement 
 of three rows of pillars of equally delicate workmanship, numbering 
 respectively 20, 28, and 40, surround the Lankarama, which is a 
 smaller but very fine dagoba, of unknown date. It is attributed to 
 King Maha-Sen, who succeeded to the throne a. d. 275, and who 
 having in the earlier years of his reign adopted a creed known to or- 
 thodox Buddhists as ' the Wytulian heresy ' (supposed to have been 
 Brahminical), had done all in his power to suppress Buddhism and 
 destroy its monuments ; but finding that the inevitable result would 
 be to raise a general rebellion, he recanted, and became a zealous 
 Buddhist, not only rebuilding all the monuments and priests' houses 
 which he had destroyed, but building new ones to outvie those of his 
 predecessors. 
 
 The chief of these is the Jetawanarama, which, though not originally 
 quite so large as the Abayagiria, was 316 feet high, and is still 249 feet 
 high, with a diameter of 360 feet. Sir James Emerson Tennant 
 calculated that even now it measures twenty millions of cubical feet, 
 giving sufficient material to raise eight thousand houses, each with 
 20 feet frontage, which would form thirty streets half a mile in length, 
 and would construct a town the size of Ipswich or Coventry, or form 
 a wall one foot in thickness and two feet in height, reaching from 
 London to Edinburgh ! 
 
 Now this mountain of brickwork is covered to the very summit 
 
 T
 
 274 ^^^^'^ HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 with large trees, of such frugal habit as apparently to live on air, for 
 they surely can find no sustenance in the crumbling bricks ! 
 
 Those slim columns with the ornamental crown, which never 
 supported anything, are most puzzling, no one having any idea why 
 they were erected. The only rude parallel that occurs to me, as 
 possibly throwing light on the subject, is a custom which prevails in 
 certain tribes in the Kassia hills on the confines of Upper India, 
 where a cromlech is erected over the ashes of the dead, whose spirits 
 are invoked by the living. Should the prayers thus offered be 
 granted, a great monolith is erected close to the tomb, in acknow- 
 ledgment thereof, and in due course of time these multiply, so that 
 some favoured tombs are surrounded with a large group of such 
 tributes of gratitude. It is just possible that this rude phase of 
 ancestor worship may give us the clue to the more elaborate pro- 
 ductions of a highly civilised race, whose object was equally the 
 invocation of the dead. Whatever meaning may have once at- 
 tached to them is now utterly forgotten, even by the priests. 
 
 As regards the dagobas themselves, there are two classes. First, 
 those which were built as depositories for sacred relics (these include 
 all the Cyclopean buildings) ; and secondly, a multitude of small 
 ones, which were merely hollow circular domes, built over a lower 
 square chamber which was the receptacle for the ashes of some 
 cremated monk or nun. Apparently the only means of access to this 
 chamber, beneath the square platform, was by a square opening 
 beneath the dome ; but when once the dome has been erected, the 
 living might no more enter the chamber of the dead. Within the 
 chamber, at the four corners, forming a sort of octagon, were stone 
 slabs bearing the name of the dead, and a short catalogue of his or 
 her good deeds, together with a representation of Buddha's feet, the 
 trident, the sun and moon, and other Buddhistic emblems. 
 
 Unfortunately, at Anuradhapura most of these tomb dagobas have 
 been destroyed by sacrilegious treasure-seekers. 
 
 Though the dagobas in this place are specially interesting as being 
 the largest and oldest in Ceylon, the same form is reproduced in 
 many more modern cities, and in connection with Buddhist temples 
 all over the Isle, all^ built on the same pattern — namely, a circular 
 building on a square platform. 
 
 ' 'I'he Thuparama and Lankarama dagobas are apparently exceptions to this rule, 
 for though the tall circular spire rests on a square platform, on the summit of the 
 dagoba, the great massive buildings are raised on circular mounds.
 
 ANURADHAPURA 275 
 
 (At Chi-Chen, in Central America, there are ancient buildings, 
 which in size, form of dome, and the ornamental tower or tee on the 
 summit, are said to be apparently identical with those of Ceylon. It 
 would be interesting to know whether they also have the square 
 platform.) 
 
 It is worthy of note that the commonest type of grave all over North 
 China, from Shanghai to Peking, simply consists of a circular earthen 
 mound erected on a square platform of earth, the mound being 
 generally crowned by a spire or knob. These are made in miniature 
 for the very \)ooy, very large for the wealthy, and Cyclopean for em- 
 perors. This combination is the mystic symbolism which, to the 
 Chinaman, represents the dual principle in nature. The square is 
 the feminine symbol, and represents the earth. The circle suggests 
 the male principle, and symbolises heaven. The same principle is 
 worked out in the construction of the great Temples of Heaven and 
 Earth at Peking. • 
 
 It is interesting and curious to find this ancient symbolism revered 
 and perpetuated by the professors of a creed to which such details 
 are certainly foreign. 
 
 The external square was repeated by an internal pillar which 
 marked the exact centre of the dagoba : in the case of the tomb- 
 dagoba the pillar was sometimes square, sometimes circular. It was 
 about a foot square, and rose about four feet above ground, and on it 
 rested the casket containing the ashes of the dead. Such caskets 
 were generally miniature dagobas of the same bell shape. 
 
 In the construction of the gigantic relic-shrines, it appears that, 
 in the first place, the exact centre was marked by an upright monolith 
 accurately squared, and placed so as to have the four sides true to the 
 points of the compass. The squares of the platform and outer wall 
 were then marked out, — also the true circle for the dagoba, — and the 
 whole was built up solidly ; no chamber of any sort till the appointed 
 height was reached, perhaps 15 feet from the summit. But so soon 
 as the central square pillar was built up, another was placed on the 
 top of it, ' truly perpendicular, and securely fixed in position by mor- 
 tice and tennon.' Thus it was carried right up from the base to a 
 height of from 200 to 400 feet, to the relic chamber, which was 
 
 1 These I have described fully in 'Wanderings in China,' vol. ii, pp. 172, 175, i8o, 
 322. See also a ground-plan of the Temple of Heaven, and notes on tomb-temples 
 in 'Meeting the Sun,' by Will Simpson, F.R.G.S., pp. 176, 190-193. Longmans, 
 Green, & Co. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 formed as a perfect square facing the cardinal points ; and here, as in 
 the tomb dagobas, this stone pillar projected about four feet through 
 the floor. It was overlaid with gold, and supported a circular 
 golden tray, on which was laid the casket containing the precious 
 relic, which may have been only a hair from a saint's eyebrow, or a 
 revered toe-nail, but was probably accompanied by treasures of very 
 much greater interest, which fully accounts for the anxiety of ruthless 
 marauders to pillage these depositories. 
 
 Here, for example, is a list published by Mr. Wickremasinghe of 
 the various objects enshrined in a dagoba at Hanguranketa : ' Two 
 gold chains and two medals, studded with valuable gems ; i6o silver 
 images, 199 bronze images, 604 precious stones, 2,000 uncut stones, 
 and many other objects, including two boards for binding a book, of 
 silver and gold, studded with gems ; five books of the Vinaya Pitaka 
 written on silver plates ; seven books of the Abhidharma Litaka on 
 silver plates, as also a number of other books ; one book written on 900 
 copper plates, each three spans long, and extracts from various 
 religious books written on 37 plates of gold, each plate weighing five 
 English sovereigns.' 
 
 Of the Cyclopean relic-dagobas,' there are seven within the limits 
 of Anuiadhapura itself, without reference to those at Mehintale and 
 elsewhere in the neighbourhood. These seven are — 
 
 
 Supposed 
 original 
 height. 
 
 Present 
 
 Diameter 
 
 Date 
 
 
 height. 
 
 at base. 
 
 begun. 
 
 Thuparama 
 
 
 62i 
 
 59 
 
 B.C. 307 
 
 Mirisawetiya 
 
 — 
 
 82i 
 
 164 
 
 B.C. 164 
 
 Ruanweli . 
 
 270 
 
 189" 
 
 379 
 
 B.C. 161 
 
 Abayagiria 
 
 405 
 
 231 
 
 325 
 
 B.C. 89 
 
 Jetawanarania . 
 
 . 316 
 
 249 
 
 360 
 
 A.D. 302 
 
 Lankarama 
 
 — 
 
 32i 
 
 44 
 
 Unknown. 
 
 Seta Chaitiya . 
 
 20 Too 
 
 ruinous 
 
 to ascertain. 
 
 B.C. 119 
 
 The latter, though generally known by this name, which means 
 ' the Stone Temple,' is properly called the Lajjikavihara, having been 
 built by King Lajji-tissa. Though small, and in very ruinous con- 
 dition, it is deemed highly sacred, and its stone carving and stairways 
 are considered very fine. 
 
 Of the other dagobas which are scattered about in the jungle, I 
 
 1 Various derivations are given: datu, 'a relic,' 2i.i\d gabbhan, 'a shrine'; or, 
 deha, ' the body," a.nd gopa, ' that which preserves,'
 
 A NURA DMA P URA 277 
 
 may mention the Kiri Wihara (Milk Temple), which is so entirely 
 buried beneath encroaching earth, that its existence is only known by 
 the tradition which declares it to lie buried beneath a huge grassy 
 mound. 
 
 All the dagobas at Anuradhapura are built of brick, and perhaps 
 their erection here was suggested by the fact of finding building 
 material in such abundance, in the form of beds of clay ready for the 
 manufacture of millions of bricks — though, strange to say, the ancient 
 chronicles relate how, to facilitate the building of the Ruanwelidagoba, 
 one of the gods created the requisite quantity of bricks at a place six- 
 teen miles distant ; but there is no record of their having been 
 miraculously transported to the spot. 
 
 Of course, in viewing these ruinous red mounds, it requires an 
 effort of imagination to picture them as they appeared when so thickly 
 coated with chunam as to resemble huge domes of polished cream- 
 coloured marble. This chunam was still in use when the oldest 
 European bungalows were built, and gives their pillared verandahs a 
 delightfully cool appearance ; but, as I have already mentioned, this 
 manufacture is a lost art, though it is known that chunam was a pre- 
 paration of lime made from burned oyster-shells, mixed with the 
 water of cocoa-nuts and the glutinous juice of the fruit called 
 paragaha. • 
 
 As regards the multitude of great columns, 'moon-stones,' and 
 other large monoliths, some were obtained from masses of rock very 
 near the city, which still bear the marks of the wedges by which the 
 pillars were split off from the rock. But many were quarried from 
 beds of mountain limestone and granitic gneiss in the neighbourhood 
 of Mihintale, a very sacred mountain about eight miles from Anurad- 
 hapura. In these quarries you still discern the holes from which, two 
 thousand years ago, the huge blocks and slabs were chiselled, — a 
 stone so hard as to defy the ravages of time and weather, for the most 
 delicate sculptures remain as perfect as though only completed yester- 
 day — each bead on the ornaments of the figures, each detail of flower 
 or foliage, retaining all its original sharpness. 
 
 Of course, in exploring any scene of ancient historic interest, it is 
 essential to have previously gathered as much information as possible 
 regarding it, for nowhere does the eye so truly see what it brings the 
 capacity for seeing as in visiting the ruined cities of bygone ages. 
 This is certainly true of this lal:)yrinth of ruinous brickwork and sculp- 
 
 i Dillena dentata.
 
 27.S Tiro HAPPY YF.ARS IX CEYLON 
 
 tared stones, so bewildering till one begins to get something like a 
 clue to its main features. 
 
 In i)oint of fact, most of what remains of the once mighty city of 
 Anuradhapura, the magnificent, lies buried beneath from six to fifteen 
 feet of soil, waiting for a whole army of excavators to come and sup- 
 plement the feeble force now working for Government. And yet, 
 although the forest now overgrows the whole plain, so that the only 
 break in your long ride is coming to an occasional open tract, where 
 fine old trees grow singly as in an English park, enough remains above 
 ground to enable you to recall vivid visions of the past. 
 
 For a space of sixteen square miles the somewhat scrubby jungle, 
 stunted by the prevalence of droughts, is but a veil for the masses of 
 masonry and brickwork ; a wilderness of granite pillars with richly 
 carved capitals, and flights of steps, some covered with intricate carv- 
 ing, as perfect to-day as when, two thousand years ago, they were 
 trodden by the unsandalled feet of reverent worshippers or busy mer- 
 chants. The designs of these stairs are beautiful— on either side 
 supported by rich scroll-patterns, and graceful figures overshadowed 
 by the seven-headed cobra, supposed to be the emblem of vigilance ; 
 while the huge semicircular stone which forms the lowest step (com- 
 monly called ' moon-stone ') generally represents a sacred lotus- 
 blossom, round which circle rows of horses, elephants, bullocks, and 
 the invariable geese held sacred by all ancient nations. These stones 
 are peculiar to Ceylon. Strange to say, no two of these are exactly 
 alike in arrangement of detail. 
 
 Broad roads have been cleared through the dense jungle, embrac- 
 ing the chief points of interest, and as you ride slowly along these or 
 any of the innumerable pilgrim-paths which here intersect the forest, 
 you see on every side the same wilderness of hewn stones, heaped up 
 in dire confusion, all overturned by the insidious growth of vegetation, 
 and at last you emerge at some huge bathing tank, all of carved stone- 
 work ; or it may be on the brink of a great artificial lake, formed by 
 an embankment of cyclopean masonry. Or else you find yourself in 
 presence of some huge figure of Buddha, perhaps reclining in the 
 dreamless repose of Nirvana, perhaps sitting in ceaseless contempla- 
 tion of the lonely forest— a mighty image of dark stone brought from 
 afar, at some remote time when worshippers vv'ere legion. Now, 
 perhaps, a handful of flowers, or some ashes of burnt camphor, tell of 
 some solitary villager who has here offered his simple prayer. 
 
 Or the object which suddenly presents itself to your amazed sight
 
 A Nl 'RA PHA P I RA 2yc) 
 
 may be one of the gigantic dagobas of which I have already spoken — • 
 one of many similar buildings which lie scattered in various parts of 
 Ceylon, in the silent depths of vast forests which now cover the sites 
 where once stood busy populous cities. 
 
 It is recorded in the ancient chronicles that on great festivals these 
 dagobas were festooned from base to summit with endless garlands of 
 the most fragrant and lovely flowers, till the whole building resembled 
 some huge shrub in blossom. Others were literally buried beneath 
 heaps of jessamine. One of the relic-shrines which was thus adorned, 
 the Jetawanarama, towered, as I have said, to a height of 316 feet. 
 
 Though no reverent hands now garland this desolate shrine, kind 
 nature still strews it with fairest blossoms, and has covered it, right up 
 to the summit, with trees of largest growth, all matted together with 
 beautiful flowering creepers. These have now been in a measure 
 cleared away so as to reveal the form of the gigantic dome, capped 
 with a ruinous red spire four storeys high, circular, on a square base. 
 Tall monoliths and sculptured figures at the base of this huge mass of 
 masonry afford the eye a standard by which to estimate its height. 
 My own feeling as I sat at work sketching it, as in duty bound, was of 
 amazement that any human beings could have constructed an object 
 so oppressively large, useless, and hideous. 
 
 Of vanished glories, one of the chief must have been the Monara- 
 or Mayura-paya — i.e., the Peacock Palace of the kings, so called not 
 only from the brilliancy of the colours with which it was painted 
 externally, but also from the abundance of precious stones, gold, and 
 silver employed in its decoration. It is described as having been a 
 building three storeys high, with ranges of cool rooms underground. 
 ^Vhatever may still remain of it is all underground, buried beneath a 
 grassy mound ; but round it, as if keeping sentry round the royal 
 palace, stand a circle of fine stone pillars with beautifully sculptured 
 capitals. 
 
 But the crowning marvel of Anuradhapura was the Lowa-maha- 
 paya, or Great Brazen Palace, a monastery built by King Dutugemunu 
 about B.C. 164, for the accommodation of one thousand priests. It 
 was nine storeys high, probably pyramidal, so that the top storey was 
 much smaller than the lowest. The latter was built up from a founda- 
 tion supported by sixteen hundred granite pillars, all of which, the 
 Rajavali implies, were covered with copper. Each priest (or rather 
 monk) had his own little dormitory, and (as no great man could possi- 
 bly allow his inferior to sit higher than himself) the poor old monks of
 
 -80 riJ't) iiArrv years tx cf.vlon 
 
 highest rank had to occupy the ui)pciniost rooms, just under the roof 
 with its ghttering brazen tiles — rather warm quarters on a hot sum- 
 mer's day ! 
 
 A most interesting account of this palace, and its various apart- 
 ments, has been preserved in the Maha-wanso, which is the book of 
 ancient national chronicles. In one great hall were golden pillars, 
 supported by golden statues of lions and elephants, while the walls 
 were inlaid with flower-patterns of costly gems, and festoons of 
 pearls. In the centre stood a magnificent ivory throne of wondrous 
 workmanship, for the high priest, while above it was the white chatta 
 or umbrella, the oriental type of sovereignty. On either side of this 
 throne were set a golden image of the Sun, and a silver one of the 
 Moon ; and the whole palace was richly carpeted, and full of 
 luxurious couches and divans. 
 
 Amongst the curious statistics of the Great Brazen Palace, we 
 hear of a stone canoe, twenty-five cubits long, made to contain 
 some special drink for the thousand priests — a very capacious 
 punch-bowl ! A huge hollowed stone, 63 feet long, 3^ feet broad, 
 and 2 feet 10 inches in depth, was pointed out to us among 
 the ruins of this great monastery as having been used for this 
 purpose; while another hollowed block of granite, 10 feet long, 
 2 feet deep, and 6 feet wide, lying near the Jetawanarama, was 
 shown as that wherein the daily allowance of rice was measured 
 out. Certainly the proportion of sack was largely in excess of the 
 solids. 
 
 Minute details are given of the daily rations provided for all 
 these priests by the king's bounty, as also of the vessels of sugar, 
 buffalo butter, and honey provided for the builders, whose work, 
 however, did not prove enduring, for in the following reign this 
 Tower of Babel ' had to be taken down, and it was rebuilt only 
 seven storeys high. Two hundred years later these were reduced to 
 five storeys, and seventy years afterwards, in a.d, 240, it must have 
 been entirely rebuilt, as the reigning monarch changed the position 
 of the supporting pillars. 
 
 When (a.d. 275) King Maha-Sen succeeded to the throne, full of 
 iconoclastic zeal, he demolished this lofty ' clergy-house,' as well as 
 many more buildings connected with Buddhism, and used them as 
 quarries for the erection of new shrines for the images supposed to 
 have been sanctioned by ' the Wytulian heresy.' But when he threw 
 over his new love to return to the old, he rebuilt the Brazen Temple
 
 ANURAnilAPURA 281 
 
 and all else that he had destroyed. Unfortunately some of the 1,600 
 granite monoliths had been broken ; so, to make up the number, 
 several were split. This was done by boring holes in the stone, and 
 therein driving wooden wedges, into which water was poured to 
 make the wood swell, — a simple but effective device, which was first 
 adopted in England about two thousand years later. 
 
 How strange it is to think that when our ancestors sailed the 
 stormy seas in their little skin-covered wicker boats, or paddled 
 canoes more roughly hollowed from trees than those quaint out- 
 riggers which here excite our wonder, Ceylon was the chief centre of 
 eastern traffic, having its own fleet of merchant ships, wherein to 
 export (some say) its superfluous grain — certainly other products — 
 to distant lands ! Possibly its traffic may even have extended to 
 Rome, to whose historians it was known as Taprobane, and of whose 
 coins as many as eighteen hundred, of the reigns of Constantine and 
 other emperors, have been found at Batticaloa. 
 
 Think, too, that while Britons wore a full-dress of only woad, and 
 lived in wattle huts, these islanders had vast cities, with stately 
 palaces and other great buildings, and monuments whose ruins even 
 now vie in dimensions with the Egyptian pyramids. 
 
 Besides these massive ruins and this endless profusion of sculp- 
 tured granite columns, and noble stairs which once led up to stately 
 temples, how poor and mean all the modern temples do appear, with 
 their wooden pillars and walls of clay, the work of pigmy descendants 
 of giants ! 
 
 Here, four hundred years before the birth of Christ, all that con- 
 stituted Eastern luxury reigned supreme : great tanks watered 
 beautiful gardens, and in the streets busy life fretted and toiled. 
 
 Even allowing largely for Oriental exaggeration we can form some 
 idea of the greatness of the city from the native annals, which tell 
 how, including these tanks and gardens, it covered two hundred and 
 fifty-six square miles, the whole of which was enclosed by a strong 
 outer wall, which was not completed till the first century after Christ. 
 From the north gate to the south gate measured sixteen miles, and 
 the old chronicles tell that it would take a man four hours to walk 
 from the north to the south gate, or across the city from the rising to 
 the setting sun. 
 
 The writer enumerates the principal streets, and it gives a 
 strangely familiar touch to hear of Great King Street, while Moon 
 Street reminds us of the planet-worship of the early Singhalese.
 
 282 Tiro IIAl'l'V YEARS IX CRYLOX 
 
 Moon Street consisted of eleven thousand houses, many of''which 
 were large beautiful mansions two storeys high. There were lesser 
 streets witliout number, bearing the name of the caste or profession 
 of its inhabitants. 
 
 All were level and straight ; the broad carriage-way was sprinkled 
 with glittering white sand, while the footpath on either side was 
 covered with dark sand. Thus the foot passengers were protected 
 from the dangers of the swift riders, chariots, and carriages. Some 
 carriages were drawn by four horses. There were elephants in- 
 numerable, rich merchants, archers, jugglers, women laden with 
 flowers for temple offerings, and crowds of all sorts. 
 
 Not only had they cunning craftsmen of all manner of trades, but 
 the most minute care was bestowed on such practical matters as the 
 sanitation of their cities. Thus in Anuradhapura there was a corps 
 of 200 men whose sole work was the daily removal of all impurity 
 from the city, besides a multitude of sweepers : 150 men were told 
 off to carry the dead to the cemeteries, which were well cared for by 
 numerous officials. 'Naked mendicants and fakirs,' 'castes of the 
 heathen,' and the aboriginal Yakkos and Nagas— /.t'. the demon and 
 snake worshippers — each had distinct settlements allotted to them in 
 the suburbs. 
 
 Within the city there were halls for music and dancing, temples 
 of various religions (all of which received liberal support from the 
 earlier kings), almshouses and hospitals both for men and beasts, the 
 latter receiving a special share of attention. One of the kings was 
 noted for his surgical skill in treating the diseases of elephants, 
 horses, and snakes. Another set aside rice to feed the squirrels in 
 his garden, and a third devoted the produce of a thousand fields to 
 provide for the care of sick animals. 
 
 At every corner of the countless streets were houses for preaching, 
 that all the passers-by might learn the wisdom of Buddha, whose 
 temples, then as now, were daily strewn with the choicest flowers, 
 garlands of jessamine, and the fragrant champac-blossoms, and 
 beautiful white and pink water-lilies (the sacred symbolical lotus). 
 On all great festivals the streets were spanned by arches covered with 
 gold and silver flags, while in the niches were placed statues holding 
 lamps or golden vases full of flowers. 
 
 At a later date the records of Pollonarua are almost identical 
 with these. Yet ere long both these cities were doomed to be 
 forsaken. The huge tanks which watered the beautiful gardens and
 
 AXURADHAPVRA 283 
 
 irrigated all the land were left to go to utter ruin ; and lor centuries 
 all has lain hushed and still. When foreigners invaded the Isle, it 
 was the policy of the Kandyans to keep the interior inaccessible, so 
 there were only difficult paths through dense jungle. Consequently, 
 although Knox had written of the wonderful ruins through which he 
 had passed when making his escape from his long captivity in 
 Kandy, they continued unknown till they were re-discovered by 
 Lieutenant Skinner about 1833, when surveying for his great work of 
 road-making. 
 
 At that time the site of the ancient city was the haunt of vast 
 herds of elephants, sambur and fallow deer, buffalo, monkeys, and 
 jackals. Porcupines and leopards sought shelter among the ruins, 
 the tanks were alive with pelicans, flamingoes, and other aquatic 
 birds, and large flocks of peafowl sought refuge in the cool shade, or 
 sunned themselves in the green glades where once were busy streets. 
 Of course, with the return of so many human beings, these shy 
 creatures have retreated to more secluded hiding places. 
 
 Here and there, on the outskirts of Anuradhapura, there are 
 great heaps of stones — huge cairns, to which, even to this day, each 
 passer-by must, without fail, add a stone, though the people have long 
 since utterly forgotten what event they commemorate. 
 
 Imagine such a fate as this creeping over the great capitals, where 
 a hundred and sixty-five successive kings reigned in all the pomp 
 and luxury of an Oriential court. ^ Their history has been handed 
 down to us in the Mahawanso, or ' Genealogy of the Great,' — that 
 precious manuscript to which frequent reference is so necessary to a 
 right understanding of events in Ceylon. Its first section — which 
 
 ' The reigns of most of these kings have been neatly summarised, as so many tales 
 in which 'irrigation, subjugation, and assassination' form the main incidents, to 
 which we may add the building of useless relic-shrines. Many of the kings were dis- 
 tinguished only for their amazing superstition, and the first queen who held the throne 
 was so bad as to be remembered only as ' the infamous Anula.' Having poisoned 
 her husband, King Chora Naga— /.f. , Naga the Marauder— and also her son Tisso, 
 she successively selected a porter of the palace, a carpenter, a carrier of firewood, a 
 Brahman, and various other lovers, to share her throne, till she was finally put to 
 death by her own grandson. 
 
 About A.D. 30 there reigned a king, byname Yatalaka Tissa, whose history affords 
 a curious -true version of 'The Prince and the Peasant.' His gate-porter Subha 
 resembled him so strikingly, that sometimes the king amused himself by exchanging 
 dresses with him. Subha, however, found these tastes of royal honour so attractive, 
 that he contrived to effect the exchange in good earnest. The king was dethroned, 
 and the porter took his place, and reigned till he was slain by the next man. And so 
 the long tale goes on.
 
 284 TIJ'O HAPPY YEARS IX CRYLOA 
 
 was compiled about the year a.d. 470 from native annals — treats of 
 the Great Dynasty — i.e., the kings who reigned from 543 B.C. to 
 310 A.D., after which comes the history of those who are classed as the 
 Sulu-wanse, or 'lower race,' although that list includes the great king 
 Prakrama Bahu, by whose orders the work was completed up to his 
 time — i.e., 1266 a.d. Finally, it was carried on to the year 1758 a.d. 
 by command of the last King of Kandy, all compiled from authentic 
 native documents. 
 
 Being written in Pali verse, none but the most learned priests 
 could possibly read it, and, as a matter of fact, no one seems to have 
 been able to do so, until in 1826 Mr. Turnour, of the Ceylon Civil 
 Service, set himself to master this terribly difficult task, and, with 
 marvellous patience and ingenuity, succeeded in so doing. Therein 
 we obtain the clue to what at first seems such a mystery — how a race 
 which produced work so wonderful as these great cities, a people so 
 powerful, and in some respects so wise, as those old Singhalese 
 (themselves, we must remember, conquerors from Northern India), 
 should have been driven from province to province till all their old 
 power and energy seems to have died out. 
 
 The mischief seems to have begun when the King of Anuradha- 
 pura first took into his pay mercenary troops from Malabar. These 
 were the Tamils, whose descendants remain to this day. They 
 rebelled, slew the king, and held the throne for twenty years. 
 Driven from the Island, they returned, and again held it for forty years. 
 Once more they were expelled, and once more fresh hordes poured 
 in from Malabar, and landing simultaneously on all parts of the 
 Island, again took possession of the capital, where some settled, 
 while others returned to the mainland laden with plunder. 
 
 During all these years an ever-recurring contest was maintained 
 between the Buddhists and their Brahmin invaders. There was the 
 usual pulling down and building up of temples, so that by a.d. 300 
 the native records declare that the glory of the city was utterly 
 destroyed, and that the royal race of children of the Sun had been 
 exterminated. Nevertheless, it still continued to be a great powerful 
 town, enclosed by strong walls. 
 
 The struggle with the Malabars continued till about a.d. 726, 
 when the kings forsook Anuradhapura and made Pollonarua, farther 
 to the south, their capital, and more beautiful than the old city. 
 Still the Malabars pushed on, and overran every corner of the 
 Island.
 
 ANURADHAP URA 285 
 
 At length, a.d. 1153, a mighty king arose, by name Prakrama 
 Bahu, who with a strong hand deUvered his country, and, driving out 
 the invaders, estabhshed peace and security. He rebuilt the temples 
 of Buddha, and made or restored fifteen hundred tanks, and canals 
 without number, to irrigate and fertilise the thirsty land. Yet thirty 
 years after the death of this great, good man, his family had become 
 so utterly weak through their incessant quarrels, that the Malabars 
 once more returned and seized the tempting prize. 
 
 And so the story of strife continued, till in 1505 the Portuguese 
 came, and then followed the further complications of the struggles 
 between Portuguese and Dutch, and later the French and English 
 took their turn as disquieting elements. 
 
 But the consequence of all these fightings was the removal of 
 the seat of Government from one part of the Isle to another, so that 
 in many a now desolate jungle there still remain some ruins of 
 ancient cities which successively claimed the honour of being'jhe 
 capital for the time being. The oldest of these was Tamana-nuwara, 
 which was the capital of Wijayo, the conqueror, B.C. 543. j^ His 
 successor founded Oopatissa-nuwara, calling it after himself. Then 
 Maagama and Kellania had their turns before Anuradhapura asserted 
 its supremacy. With the exception of those eighteen years when 
 Kaasyapa (the parricide and suicide) lived on the fortified rock of 
 Sigiri,' and one year when King Kaloona removed the capital to 
 Dondra or Dewa-nuwara, the city of the gods, and likewise com- 
 mitted suicide, Anuradhapura reigned supreme for 1,353 years, when 
 it was abandoned in favour of PoUonarua : three hundred years 
 later Anuradhapura became the capital during one stormy reign, and 
 Roohoona, Kalu-totta, and Kaacha-ragama were each the royal home 
 for a brief interval. 
 
 Then came the reign of the great King Prakrama, when the glory 
 of PoUonarua was at its height, and continued the capital during the 
 seventeen changes of sovereignty which followed in the twenty years 
 after his death. From 1235 to the end of the century, Dambadeniya 
 was the chief city. Then PoUonarua had another turn. After this, 
 Kurunegalla, Gampola, Sengada-galla-nuwara, Kandy, and Cotta 
 were successively the royal headquarters. 
 
 Now one after another of these great centres has fallen into 
 comparative neglect, and several into total oblivion. Giant trees 
 have overgrown both palaces and markets ; beautiful parasitic plants 
 
 > P. 246.
 
 286 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 have loosened the great blocks of stone, and the dark massive ruins 
 are veiled by lovely creepers, and all the wealth of tropical scenery, 
 through which (as they did so recently in Anuradhapura) bears and 
 leopards roam undisturbed, while birds of all glorious hues flit 
 through the foliage. Only at the time of certain great festivals do 
 devout pilgrims still wend their way through the silent depths of 
 these dark forests, to do homage at these shrines ; and the stillness of 
 night is broken by their pious ejaculations as they circle round the 
 huge relic-shrines. 
 
 At the time of our visit to Anuradhapura, the pilgrims had 
 assembled in vast numbers to celebrate the festival of the Midsummer 
 New Moon, and their simple camps — yellow tents of great taliput 
 palm-leaves, of which each pilgrim carries one section, to act as 
 sunshade or umbrella — formed a very picturesque feature in the 
 scene. Half-a-dozen pieces of leaf, supported by sticks, form the 
 slight shelter which is all they need. (Many carry one of the tough 
 fibrous sheaths which has enveloped the young flower of the areca- 
 palm, and which serves as a simple rice-plate, while an ingeniously 
 folded palmyra-palm leaf forms an excellent water-bucket.) 
 
 With reverent steps they trod the green forest-glades, marking 
 the course of the main streets of the holy city, and guided by yellow- 
 robed Buddhist priests. Many of the pilgrims carried small flags 
 and banners, and one group carried a miniature ark containing a 
 golden lotus-blossom, to be offered to the sacred Bo-tree. 
 
 The ark, I may observe, holds the same place of honour in 
 Ceylon as it does in many other nations. To all travellers in the 
 Himalayas, the ark veiled with curtains, within which is concealed 
 the idol most deeply reverenced, is a familiar object— an ark which 
 is carried on staves through the forests, with music and dancing, and 
 which, both in its proportions and in all the ceremonies connected 
 with it, bears strange affinity to the sacred ark of the Israelites.' ^Ve 
 find it again in the Christian Churches of Abyssinia and in the 
 Buddhist temples of Japan ; and here in Ceylon every important 
 deivali (that is, every Malabar temple) has an ark very similar to that 
 of the Himalayas, the sacred objects, which are so jealously concealed 
 from the gaze of even devout worshippers, being in this case the 
 mystic arrows of the god or deified hero there held in reverence. 
 Once a year, at a great full moon festival, this ark is borne forth on 
 
 J I have described many such arkite ceremonies in ' In Uie Himalayas,' pp. 361-371, 
 436. Pubhshed by Chatto & Windus.
 
 ui a 

 
 ANURADHAPURA 287 
 
 its staves, and carried in sunwise circuit round the temple amid great 
 rejoicing. 
 
 That tiny ark, containing the mystic lotus-blossom, was not the 
 only link we noticed to the customs of far-distant lands. At the 
 entrance to the Wata Daghe, at Pollonarua, lies a stone precisely 
 similar to the Clach Brach at St. Oran's Chapel in lona, with a row 
 of hollows, said to have been worn by the continual action of stone 
 or crystal balls, which the passers-by turned sunwise to bring them 
 luck. And here, in Anuradhapura, are three stone bulls, which 
 women who have not been blessed with offspring also drag round 
 sunwise, that they may ensure the speedy birth of an heir. One 
 of these seems to have formerly revolved on a pivot, but now main 
 force does all. 
 
 Certainly the most venerated objects of superstition are not often 
 impressive to the eye, and these are three insignificant little animals, 
 measuring respectively 3 feet 6, 2 feet 9, and i foot 7. They lie on 
 the turf beneath a great tree— a curious foreground to a most 
 picturesque pilgrim's camp of yellow palm-leaves like gigantic fans, 
 banked up with withered boughs ; women and children busy round 
 their camp fires, and beyond the curling blue smoke rise the pillars 
 of the Brazen Palace. 
 
 Thousands of these primitive tents were scattered about in groups 
 in the park-like grounds, and I had the good fortune to witness a 
 very striking scene on the night of our arrival, when all night long, 
 by the light of a glorious full moon, great companies, guided by 
 bare-armed and bare-footed yellow-robed priests, circled round the 
 Ruanweli dagoba, shouting 'Saadhu !' the Buddhist form of 'AH hail !' 
 ]5ut in making their circle they kept their left side tow^ards the relic- 
 shrine, which in sun-lore all the world over is the recognised form 
 of invoking a curse instead of a blessing ! But on the beautifully 
 sculptured ' moon-stones ' at the base of the great temple and palace- 
 stairs, all the animals — elephants, oxen, horses, lions, sacred geese — 
 have their right side towards the central lotus- blossom ; so they are 
 making the orthodox sunwise turn. 
 
 On returning to Britain I compared notes with my kinsman, 
 J. F. Campbell, of Islay, and found that he also had been impressed 
 by these various peculiarities of sunwise and anti-sunwise turns ; and 
 he noticed, moreover, that all creeping plants in the jungle coil with 
 their left side towards the centre. 
 
 But the object of deepest reverence to the pilgrims, and of
 
 288 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 exceeding interest to us all, was the Peepul or sacred Bo-tree (as 
 irreverent Britons, in their love for al:)breviation, call the Maha Jaya 
 Sri Bodingahawahanse, or great illustrious sacred Tree of Wisdom, 
 which is really believed to be the very identical tree which was 
 planted here in the year B.C. 288, and which consequently must now 
 be 2,180 years old). AV^hat was shown to us as the original tree was 
 such a wizened little old stump, that we agreed it might very well be 
 the genuine article, and the ancestor of the generations of old Bo-trees 
 which surround it within the sacred enclosure, to say nothing of all others 
 in every corner of Ceylon, all of which have been propagated from seed. 
 
 Assuredly no other tree has ever occupied so important a place 
 in history, or had its own story so minutely recorded from generation 
 to generation. Sir James Emerson Tennant ' quotes twenty-five 
 extracts from various native chronicles, and other ancient sources 
 (and these, he says, are but a few out of a multitude), stating the 
 various honours paid to the sacred tree in different reigns, from its 
 first arrival, nearly three hundred years before the Christian era, till 
 that of the very last King of Kandy, who in 1739 caused it to be 
 inscribed on a rock that he had dedicated certain lands in the Wanni 
 to the sacred tree. 
 
 One of the passages quoted from the Mahawanso, written about 
 470 A.D., concludes : 'Thus this monarch oi ^ho.ioxt.'sX^efido'wed with 
 miraculous poivers^ has stood for ages in the delightful Maha-mego 
 gardens in Lanka, promoting the spiritual tvelfare of its inhabita7its 
 and the propagation of true religion.^ 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that in one of these quotations Fa 
 Hian, the Chinese traveller, describes the tree as having sent forth a 
 branch which descended to earth and there took root. Now as this 
 is the habit of the banyan {Ficus indica)^ and not of the Peepul or 
 Bo {Ficus religiosa), certain heretics have suggested that the priests 
 may occasionally have renovated the old tree by placing a healthy 
 seedling in some crevice, and that by mistake a seedling of the wrong 
 sort had at that time been introduced. 
 
 However, the leaves of these two cousins are so essentially 
 different that such a mistake could not really have been made, those 
 of the banyan being thick and leathery, while those of the Bo are 
 very thin and light. They are like very large birch-leaves, heart- 
 shaped, with a long ribbon-like point, and are attached to the stem 
 by such a long slender stalk that they tremble incessantly, like the 
 
 1 ' Ceylon,' vol. ii, pp. 617, 63a.
 
 ANURADIIAPURA 2 89 
 
 leaves of the aspen. This, say tlic Buddhists, is because of their 
 sympathetic joy that beneath their shade Gautama attained to the 
 perfection of all knowledge — a legend which to Christian ears recalls 
 the tradition which attributes the quivering of the aspen leaf to the 
 memory of that dread day when the bitter Cross on Calvary was 
 fashioned from its unwilling wood. 
 
 The story of the tree is that it was a branch of the sacred Peepul 
 at Uruwelle (now known as Gaya or Buddha- Gaya, the capital of 
 Behar) beneath which Buddha sat absorbed in contemplation — some 
 say he lived beneath its shade for four years. Those who seek most 
 closely to assimilate the ' Light of Asia ' with the True Light of the 
 ^^'orld, say, forty days.^ The mighty Indian King Dharm-Asoka— 
 />., the righteous Asoka —having zealously embraced Buddhism, his 
 children followed in his footsteps, his son Mahindo becoming a priest, 
 and his daughter Sanghamitta the abbess of a Buddhist nunnery. 
 Mahindo, the royal missionary, came to Ceylon B.C. 307, and preached 
 so effectually that not only Dewenipiatissa, the King of Anuradhapura, 
 but also Queen Anula, and many women of the Isle, declared them- 
 selves converts to the new creed, and desired to take the vows of 
 devotion thereto. 
 
 Mahindo recommended that his sister Sanghamitta should come 
 to instruct the women ; so King Tissa sent an embassy to Behar 
 inviting the royal Abbess to come to Ceylon, and praying Asoka to 
 bestow upon him a branch or graft of the Tree of Wisdom. This 
 the king was willing to do, but dared not risk the sin of sacrilege by 
 cutting the tree with any instrument. He therefore approached it 
 reverently at the head of a thousand priests ; they worshipped the 
 tree, and presented offerings of flowers to it ; then having prepared 
 a golden vase filled with perfumed earth, he took vermilion paint in 
 
 1 The original tree at Buddha-Gaya has long since disappeared, but as with kings, 
 so with sacred trees, ' Le roi est inort, vive le roi ! ' A descendant has ever flourished 
 to receive homage from the 100,000 pilgrims who annually flock to Gaya, no longer to 
 reverence the memory of Buddha, but of Vishnu, to whom the tree is now dedicated. 
 The modern tree was a very grand one, estimated at about two hundred years of age, 
 but about ten years ago it was blown down, and only a sapling remained, which, how- 
 ever, has now developed into a fine tree. Close to it were the ruins of the ancient 
 dagoba, erected on the spot where Buddha is supposed to have sat. It had been so 
 entirely demolished by Hindoo successors that little more than the foundations re- 
 mained. With more consideration for Buddhist traditions than for England's credit 
 as a Christian nation, this stately pyramidal dagoba was actually rebuilt at great 
 expense by the British Government, at the time when Sir Ashley Eden was Lieutenant- 
 Governor of Bengal. 
 
 U
 
 290 711 'O HAPPY YEARS IX CF.YT.Oh 
 
 a golden ])cncil, and (herewith drew a lino round a branch, and 
 prayed it to sever itself from the tree, and transplant itself into the 
 vase, which it most obligingly did forthwith, while the assembled 
 multitudes shouted 'Saadhu ! ' to the holy tree. 
 
 Then Sanghamitta, with five hundred Buddhist nuns, started for 
 Ceylon, in charge of the precious branch, where it was received with 
 indescribable devotion. A whole chapter of the Mahawanso is de- 
 voted to the account of its reception, and how the king, the lord of 
 chariots, commanded that it should be lifted by the four high-caste 
 tribes, and by eight persons of each of the other castes, and so it was 
 duly planted, and much worshipped. 
 
 The fact of the Peepul being held in veneration by Hindoos of 
 all sects, as being alike sacred to IJrahma and Vishnu, accounts for 
 its having been not only spared, but honoured by the conquerors 
 who in different centuries overran the Isle with fire and sword.' 
 
 In the history of successive kings, their devotion to the Bo-tree 
 is duly recorded — how one built up the tiers of stone terraces around 
 it ; another paved the enclosure with marble ; another erected stone 
 stairs leading up to it from four sides ; others made many images of 
 Buddha in stone and in metal, and built halls to receive these and 
 various relics. King Waahsabo, who reigned a.d. 62, kept up an 
 illumination of a thousand lamps here and at other shrines, and also 
 ' caused statues to be formed of the four Buddhas, of their exact 
 stature, and he built an edifice to contain them, near the delightful 
 Bo-tree.' If the exact size of the other Buddhas was at all on the 
 scale of Gautama's tooth and footprint, it must have been rather a 
 large edifice ! 
 
 After the destruction of Sitawacca by the Portuguese, it was 
 prophesied that the town would be rebuilt when the Bo-tree lost one 
 of its branches. 
 
 In A.D. 1674 a branch of the tree was stricken by lightning, and 
 the Dutch verified the prophecy by restoring some of the old 
 buildings. 
 
 It would be interesting to know whether the present phoenix-like 
 birth of a modern Anuradhapura hasany connection with the disaster 
 which befell the tree on October 4, 1887. After a prolonged drought, 
 
 1 Various trees hold a place in the legends of the twenty-five Buddhas whose 
 presence has already blessed this world. Gautama selected the Bo, as did also one of 
 his predecessors ; another was connected with the Champac ; and the ne.xt will, it is 
 said, confer similar honour on the ironwood tree with the scarlet tips of young 
 foliage.
 
 A NURA DHA r URA 291 
 
 which continued for ciglit months, the tom-tom was l)catcn to in- 
 vite all good Buddhists to assemble on the 7th to take part in the 
 ceremony of Kiri Utura-wanawa — i.e., the outpouring of milk, at the 
 shrine of the sacred tree, while invoking rain. But on that very day 
 (without waiting for the milk-offering !) there arose a mighty tempest 
 of thunder, lightning, and rain, accompanied l)y a violent north wind 
 which snapped the main stem : it fell with a crash, carrying with it 
 part of the iron railing round the enclosure. Now a stump about 
 four feet high is all that remains of the original tree. 
 
 A smaller branch had been broken in 1870, and was cremated 
 with all honour, and said to have attained its Nirvana. But the fall 
 of the ' Clreat Lord ' itself was a more serious matter, and was deemed 
 a very evil omen. Sadly and solemnly the fallen branch was sawn 
 into logs by men attired in mourning and having handkerchiefs tied 
 over their mouths. One log was preserved by the high priest, to be 
 sold to pilgrims in small chips, as precious worshipful relics ; the 
 others were laid on a bullock-cart canopied with white cloth, and 
 borne in procession to a funeral pyre erected near the Thuparama 
 dagoba, where they were cremated with all the ceremonial observed 
 at the funeral of a pjuddhist high priest, and to a terrific accompani- 
 ment of tom-tom beating. 
 
 On the following day the ashes were collected, and a second great 
 procession conveyed them to the neighbouring lake, the Tissa-wewa 
 on whose waters they were to be scattered. Apparently, however, 
 some ashes were reserved, and a small dagoba was erected to 
 their honour, so doubtless these now receive their full share of 
 worship. 
 
 Except to the eye of faith, the disappearance of this preter- 
 naturally old branch will make small difference, as there are so many 
 branches, all apparently about the same age, and none exceeding two 
 feet in diameter, growing up through the i)yramidal stonework which 
 is built round the tree in four terraces. It is impossible to guess how 
 much trunk there may be, as it is so effectually built up out of sight. 
 Each of these terraces forms a platform round which the pilgrims 
 walk in procession, and feed the great company of monkeys of all 
 sizes and ages which play in the branches. 
 
 At one festival— the Wandanawa — these branches are plastered 
 over with gold paper, and the boughs are decorated with hundreds of 
 brightly coloured handkerchiefs fluttering gaily in the breeze — a pretty 
 elaboration of the decoration of sacred bushes with rag-offerings, as 
 
 u 2
 
 292 TWO IIAPPV YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 practised in so many lands, from Ireland and Scotland to the Hima- 
 layas. 
 
 At night pilgrims come bearing tiny lamps, and burn camphor to 
 the tree as they circle round within the railing. To the priests they 
 offer more practical gifts of rice and coin. Much good milk is also 
 poured out in offerings to the thirsty tree. 
 
 You can well understand that the withered leaves which fall from 
 so sacred a tree are priceless treasures, and jealously guarded. The 
 priests spread white cloths of honour beneath the tree to collect all 
 such, and distribute or sell them to eager pilgrims. If the supply 
 exceeds the demand, the superfluous leaves are cremated. Of course 
 to gather one would be accounted unpardonable sacrilege. 
 
 At night the tree is illuminated by very primitive lamps, half- 
 cocoa-nut shells filled with oil and with floating wicks, which give 
 a feeble flickering light. I wondered that the monkeys did not 
 upset them, but probably they have learnt by experience to respect 
 flame. 
 
 In the outer court, overshadowed by Bo-trees of a younger and 
 more vigorous generation, and by cocoa and palmyra palms, are 
 various images and finely sculptured stones, including sundry five- and 
 seven-headed cobras. So here we stand in the very presence of the 
 ancient tree and serpent worship — the former as real as ever, the 
 latter obsolete except in quiet corners.' 
 
 Yet even here you may sometimes see ashes of burnt camphor, 
 and bits of v\-ax and a few flowers, on these snake sculptures, proving 
 that they have received their .share of night worship, and images of 
 cobras made of painted clay are offered on the altar of the Bo-tree 
 which stands on the outer side of the inner wall. So Buddhism in- 
 corporatesand sanctions every conceivable variety of worship, provided 
 that of Buddha himself is paramount. Thus the serpent worship, 
 which could not be eradicated, was made subservient to Buddhism, 
 by the legend of how the gigantic king of all the cobras proved his 
 reverence for (iautama by rearing its great hood above his head, to 
 protect him from the sun as he sat lost in meditation. Hence 
 the hydra-headed serpent which forms the canopy of such innumer- 
 able images of Buddha. 
 
 The Rev. Samuel Langdon mentions that he has known 
 various instances in which the priests or their attendants have kept 
 tame cobras within the enclosure which generally surrounds each 
 
 1 See Chapter v., p. 91.
 
 A XURA DHA P URA 
 
 293 
 
 sacred Bo-tree, notably at the gigantic tree which overshadows the 
 place where the kings of Kandy were cremated. These gentle pets 
 are fed at regular hours, and it is suspected that the protection 
 afforded them is not unmingled with some feeling of reverence. 
 
 In the same way in India, the Brahmin priests find it convenient 
 to sanction proceedings which they cannot prevent, and are present 
 at many ceremonies of the simplest serpent-worship.' 
 
 Both Tamils and Singhalese have a legend of how a cobra and the 
 even more deadly tic polonga came together to a well in a time of 
 great drought, and finding a little girl drawing water, each asked for a 
 drink. 'I'his she agreed to draw, pro- 
 vided they would promise never to bite 
 her. Both promised and both drank, 
 and the cobra glided gratefully away, but 
 the treacherous tic bit the child, who 
 died in great agony. 
 
 So the cobra is called Nallu paiitbn, 
 ' the good snake,' because he kept his 
 promise, and he and the tic hate one 
 another so cordially that the Singhalese 
 equivalent for the old English saying 
 about hating a thing ' as the devil hates 
 holy water ' is, ' They hate one another 
 as the tic hates the polonga.' 
 
 It has been suggested that the 
 various proverbs and folklore referring 
 to this enmity really owe their origin to 
 
 ancient feuds between clans of the Nagas or serpent worshipping 
 tribes who inhabited Ceylon ere its conquest by the Singhalese. 
 
 Pollonarua, the mighty medieval city which became the capital of 
 the Isle after the downfall of Anuradhapura, is said to have been 
 named in honour of the two serpents aforesaid — Folo/i and //(/, the 
 polonga and naga— in order to propitiate both. 
 
 Some years ago Mr. Layardopenedadagobanear Colombo which 
 was supi)osed to have been built to commemorate the conversion of 
 the Naga king of Kelany to the faith of Buddha. The treasure- 
 chamber contained some fragments of bone wrapped in thin gold-leaf. 
 
 LUDDHA GUARDED BY THE 
 COBRA, ROCK TEMPLE, 
 ELLA PASS. 
 
 1 Some of which 1 have described in ' In the Himalayas,' pp. 249, 230. 
 by Chatto & Windus. 
 
 Pubhshed
 
 294 ^^^l^^O HAPPY YEARS /.V CEYLON 
 
 a few pearls, gold rings and bits of brass, a brass lamp, a small 
 pyramid made of cement and a clay cobra wrapped up in cotton 
 clulh. 
 
 I lingered long, alone with my sketching-block, amid these 
 strangely suggestive surroundings, the stillness broken only by the 
 ceaseless rustling of the trembling leaves, or an occasional stampede 
 of inquisitive monkeys. 
 
 The entrance to this sacred enclosure is by a double-roofed red- 
 tiled gateway (what a multitude of reverent pilgrims from far and near 
 have passed through that old portal in the course of these two 
 thousand years !). Just beyond are forty rows of roughly-hewn stone 
 pillars, which even now stand twelve feet above the soil and are 
 doubtless sunk to a depth of many more — a strange and unique sight. 
 In each row there are forty of these granite monoliths, making sixteen 
 hundred in all. Some have fallen, some arc half buried among the 
 ruins, but there they are -and these are all that now remain above 
 ground to mark the spot where the stately Brazen Palace once stood, 
 with all its crowds of learned priests. Of course there is not a vestige 
 of the copper which once covered the pillars, nor of the resplendent 
 brazen tiles. 
 
 I was told a legend —whether authentic or not I cannot say — 
 that the final destruction of tliis grand building was due to fire kindled 
 by a queen, who when sore beset by the Malabar armies, and seeing 
 no hope of escape from beleaguering foes, resolved that at least they 
 should not enjoy the pillage of the palace, and so caused all her most 
 precious possessions to be brought here and heai)ed together, and 
 having with her own hands set fire to this costly funeral i)yre, thereon 
 sought death. 
 
 Now the desolate ruins are forsaken alike by priests and worship- 
 I)ers. I wandered alone through the labyrinth of grey pillars where 
 only a flock of shaggy, long-legged, reddish goats were nibbling the 
 parched grass, just as I have seen British sheep finding greener pas- 
 ture beneath the shadow of the mighty rock-temple of our own ances- 
 tors at Stonehenge.
 
 ANURADIIAPURA AND MJJ/hXTALE 295 
 
 CHAPTiai XIII 
 
 ANURADIIAPURA AND MIllINTALE 
 
 Isurumuniya — Yoga-stones— Proverbs— Water-lilies— Beautiful jungle .shrubs— The 
 Kuttani Pokuna — The oldest tanks — Rainfall — The iiKidcrn town— Mihiulale — 
 Wahindo — The great mountain-stair — Dagobas — Naga Pokuna — Mahindo's bed — 
 Rock cells — Inscriptions. 
 
 AiMiD such a labyrinth of ruins, all on such level ground, the network 
 of jungle paths would be bewildering were it not for two broad grassy 
 roads which have been cleared, forming an inner and outer circle, so 
 as greatly to facilitate finding all the chief objects of interest. 
 
 One of these is Isurumuniya, an ancient temple which, three hun- 
 dred years before the birth of Christ, was hewn out of a mass of solid 
 rock, by order of King Dewenipiatissa, the ' Delight of the Gods.' 
 There are temple buildings and sculptures all about and around the 
 rock, and a number of very remarkable grotesque frescoes — so gro- 
 tesque and so unlike orthodox Buddhist art that they are attributed 
 to Hindoo sculptors (that is to say, Hindoo in religion : as regards 
 nationality, we know that Wijayo and his Singhalese followers also 
 came to Ceylon from the valley of the Ganges). 
 
 The name of this temple, however, seems to mark this spot as one 
 revered by the islanders ere either Buddhism or Brahminism was here 
 established — at least it seems probable that it was derived from 'Eis- 
 wara ' and ' Muniya,' i.e., ascetic. 
 
 The worship of Eiswara,' the Almighty, as still observed on the 
 Saami Rock at Trincomalee, seems to have been the original worship 
 of Ceylon, and probably this rock also was specially sacred from the 
 earliest days. But the Hindoo worshippers of Siva artfully identified 
 Eiswara with Siva, and it is i)robable that, in some of their many in- 
 vasions, a community of Sivites may have settled in the neighbour- 
 hood of King Tissa's temple, which otherwise presents all the usual 
 features of Buddhist art— the fine semicircular moon-stone at the base 
 of sculptured stairs, at each flight of which stand the invariable jani- 
 tors, canopied by a seven-headed cobra. 
 
 Within the Rock Temple sits a small image of Buddha, hewn from 
 the solid rock, and flanked by two very ancient wooden figures, 
 
 ' Sec Chapter xix.
 
 296 TJPV HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 apparently preaching. Four boldly designed elephants' heads stand 
 out from the rock in low relief, and there are other details of 
 interest. 
 
 Near the temple is ^Jia/isa/a, or dwelling house for the priests ; 
 but the chief-priest has a galge, or cell to himself— a most uninviting 
 little room, cut out of the solid rock. 'Jlicse occupy themselves in 
 doing homage to a Sri-patula, or sacred footprint, recently cut on 
 the summit of the rock to represent the footmark on the summit of 
 Adam's Peak — as also in offering flowers on the altar of a young Bo 
 tree, which has been carefully planted in a crevice of the rock. Some 
 very incongruous foreign-looking modern building has in recent times 
 been erected on the rock, and looks thoroughly out of place in the 
 strange jungle temple. 
 
 Amongst the minor objects of interest pointed out to us were cer- 
 tain * Yoga '-stones, most puzzling to the uninitiated, as they are simply 
 square stones, each having a certain number of square holes cut into 
 them : these holes vary from nine to twenty-five in number. One 
 might suppose they were designed for playing some game ; but those 
 who are learned in Buddhist mysteries tell us that they were an aid to 
 intensify meditation, used by such of the priests as desired to attain the 
 highest grade of sanctity. The method adopted was for the devotee 
 to fill these holes with sweet-oil, sandal-wood, and other ingredients, 
 and then sit hour after hour gazing intently on the stone, till at last 
 the weary dazed eyes began to see a dazzle of light, which gradually 
 increased till the watcher beheld through that medium all the hells 
 and purgatories of the under-world. Then, raising his eyes, he beheld 
 through the same dazzle all the graduated heavens of the demi-gods, 
 and the glory of Buddha in the highest heaven. 
 
 I remembered how at Benares I had watched the Brahmin priests 
 practising habsiditiii, or ' the retention of breath,' as a similar method 
 of attaining sanctity ! Verily, 'men have sought out many inven- 
 tions ' ! 
 
 We were also shown some interesting old stone coffins, made of 
 solid blocks of stone, hollowed out so as just to fit the figure of the 
 dead. The cover, which is more or less sculptured, is a heavy slab 
 of stone cemented to the main block. One of these was said to have 
 been the coffin of King Dutugemunu (of whose death, about n.c. 150, 
 I have already spoken): if so, it speaks little of reverence for the 
 mighty dead that his tomb should have been thus rifled. But most 
 of these have been taken from graves of
 
 ANURADHAPURA AND MI HINT ALE 2C)7 
 
 Chiefs who under their grey slone 
 So long have slept, that fickle Fame 
 I huh blotted from her rolls their name. 
 
 With regard to the king's sarcophagus, however, there is a 
 tradition that this was not his coffin, Ijut his medicine-bath, in which 
 he lay to coimteract the poison of a serpent's bite. It is to be hoped 
 the bath was ready beforehand ! 
 
 Recent excavations have brought to Hght many things intensely 
 interesting to archaeologists, such as a very remarkable stone railing, 
 peculiar to Buddhist architecture, various images of Buddha, and 
 portions of ancient buildings. But until quite recently the (loths 
 and Vandals made such free use of any building-stone that seemed 
 suitable for any modern work — bridge-building or repairs — and so 
 many stones, inconvenient to farmers, disappeared, when portions of 
 the jungle were dienacd {i.e., cleared for temporary cultivation), that 
 the work of excavation and restoration is very much less satisfactory 
 now than it would have been twenty years ago. 
 
 Of course nowadays every stone is rigidly protected ; but in too 
 many cases this is too late to avert the mischief. By the way, 
 the Singhalese version of ' locking the door when the steed is stolen 
 is 'fencing the field while the oxen are within devouring the corn.' 
 
 Many of the time-honoured proverbs of Europe have their 
 equivalent among the common sayings of the Singhalese. Thus, for 
 ' Pariiii les aveugles les dorgties sont rois,'' we find ' In the tank where 
 there is no loola, kanapaddi is the pundit ' (the latter being an insig- 
 nificant fish as compared with the loola). 
 
 For 'Let sleeping dogs lie' we have 'Why awaken sleeping 
 cheetas?' />., leopards. For 'Chat cchaudc craiiit Peau froide,^ the 
 Eastern equivalent shows that the man who was beaten with a fire- 
 brand shrinks from the glimmer of the firefly. 
 
 In j)lace of forbearing to 'add fuel to the fire,' these travellers 
 through thorny jungle bid us ' not sharpen thorns.' 
 
 That 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' is suggested 
 liy the wisdom which prefers 'a snipe today to an elephant on the 
 morrow,' and esteems crow's flesh which is near above i)eacock's 
 flesh which is far off. 
 
 'J'o 'run with the hare and hunt with the hounds' is described l)y 
 'drinking of the river but praising the sea.' 
 
 Divers social grades are justified by asking 'whether all five 
 fingers are of one size ? ' while of a man overwhelmed with trouble, it
 
 298 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 is said, that when the waters have risen above his head it matters 
 httle whether their height be a span or a cubit. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the new attractions opened up by the 
 extensive clearing of the forest, I almost doubt whether the ancient 
 cily can be quite so charming or so romantic now that she has 
 become a centre of so much interest, as in the lonely days of her 
 utter desolation. IJut certainly there is no doubt as to the ad- 
 vantages for the inhabitants, who from a mere handful of poor, 
 sickly, half-starved villagers, now number about three thousand 
 healthy well-fed people, chiefl)- owing to the clearing of great tracts 
 of jungle - and the restoration of the tanks — the one dispelling 
 malaria, and the other securing a fair supply of good water, which, it 
 is hoped, may ere long be made quite permanent. 
 
 At the time of our visit there was sufficient drought to enable us 
 to reaMse what the lack of water might be. The beautiful river — 
 the Malwatte-oya ('river of the Garden of Flowers') — which in time 
 of monsoon rains flows in a rushing flood, was almost dried up, the 
 small artificial lakes had scarcely sufficient water to float the lovely 
 water-lilies, and the minor tanks were altogether dried up. 
 
 Oh, the beauty of those water-lilies ! — white, blue, yellow, or 
 pink — nestling among their glossy leaves on the still waters. The 
 fragrant, large, pink vianel (the true lotus) • is, I think, the handsomest 
 of all water-plants. Of course it is not so splendid as the Victoria regia 
 of South America (on the great leaves of which, six feet in diameter, 
 and with upturned rims four or five inches high, Indian mothers 
 deposit their babies while they do the household washing), nor is it 
 so dainty as some of the smaller lilies, with flat glossy leaves ; but it 
 • certainly is a beautiful object, as, with the first ray of the morning, it 
 rises high above the surface of the water, and unfolds its rosy petals 
 to drink in sunlight all the day, closing them again at sunset, when 
 the blossoms hide beneath the great blue-grey leaves, and I am told, 
 sink beneath the surface of the water. 
 
 When the flower fades the petals fall, leaving a seed-pod the 
 shape of a funnel, and internally divided like a honeycomb, each cell 
 containing one seed about the size of a filbert, and with much the 
 same flavour, only rather more oily, like an almond. The roots are 
 also very good food ; but fortunately, the blossom is so much prized 
 for offering in the temj)le (the lotus being especially sacred to 
 Buddha), that it escapes being pulled up wholesale. 
 
 1 Neluinbium speiiosum.
 
 ANURADHAPURA AND MIHINTALE 299 
 
 Notwithstanding the drought, all through the jungle every now 
 and again there arose a general fragrance like the scent of a hothouse 
 wafted from blossoms often hidden from sight. Rut there were a 
 tree and a shrub whose wealth of flower and intensity of colour 
 formed a very marked and attractive feature in the forest. 'J'be 
 former, called Cassia fistula, is like a magnificent laburnum, but 
 grows to the size of an English ash-tree, and its bunches of large 
 golden blossom are each about two feet in length. Tts foliage is 
 also something like that of the ash. The French name for 
 laburnum — 'golden rain' — would in this case describe a truly 
 tropical shower ! 
 
 And instead of bearing neat little seeds like our familiar friend, 
 these gorgeous blossoms develop into very peculiar jet-black pods, 
 perfectly cylindrical, and from two to three feet long, divided into a 
 number of compartments, each containing one seed. It has been 
 suggested that the tree at this stage seems as though it had borne an 
 abundant crop of ebony rulers, each suspended to the bough by a 
 short string ! There is another species of cassia which bears a 
 shorter thicker pod, only about a foot in length. Each seed of both 
 species is embedded in a sweet, sticky, black pulp, which has 
 valuable medicinal properties. Unfortunately, its bark is also very 
 highly valued for other medical purposes, consequently it is diftlcult 
 to preserve this beautiful tree near cities, because the natives almost 
 invariably contrive to find some opportunity to peel the poor thing, 
 and leave it to perish. 
 
 The other shrub which so fascinated me was one which I have 
 never seen elsewhere ; but as its blossoms only last three or four days, 
 I may have passed it often at other times without observing it. 
 During that short period it is covered with such a luxuriant wealth 
 of small flowers of the very purest cobalt blue, that it seems as 
 though a bit of the blue heaven overhead had fallen on this flivoured 
 bush. I am told that this lovely plant rejoices in the name of 
 Memecylon tindoriiini, and that its glossy green leaves, strange to say, 
 yield a delicate yellow dye ; also that it bears dark-blue berries 
 something like our blaeberry, which the natives eat, and which possess 
 astringent qualities. 
 
 Another very pretty common jungle shrub is the ipecacuanha, 
 which bears clusters of bright orange-coloured flowers. 
 
 And besides the flowers there were the butterflies — such beauties, 
 and so many of them, of such infinite variety ! -floating in the hot
 
 300 rirO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 (|uivering air. And hot it certainly was beneath the noonday sun, 
 wlien the atmosphere seemed to our tired eyes to be visibly vibrating 
 and dazzling. Still, by taking rational precautions — such as carrying 
 a large white umbrella, and wearing a damp sponge suspended inside 
 my solar hat, so as to keep a cool damp atmosphere above my head, 
 and a fairly thick jacket to protect the spine — I never found any evil 
 from sitting out sketching the livelong day ; and I am inclined to 
 think that women in general live far too much in the dark in tropical 
 countries. • 
 
 I referred just now to the medicinal use of cassia-bark. The 
 native Singhalese doctors are fully aware of the value of many plants 
 and shrubs, such as the sarsaparilla, nux-vomica, and gamboge 
 tree. The latter yields its golden juice on the bark being stabbed, 
 and its intensely acid fruit is dried and used in curries. The 
 bark of the cashew-tree yields tannin Charcoal obtained from 
 the burnt root of the jak-tree is a remedy for malignant sores and 
 ulcers. 
 
 In i8S6 Dr. Trimen, the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, 
 had collected samples of 362 of the vegetable drugs in use among 
 the native village doctors in the Central Province, and considered his 
 series to be by no means complete. They seem to include remedies 
 for every ill that flesh can possibly endure ; but though really good 
 in themselves, most are villainously prepared, and so many are given 
 in combination to make up huge dosts that they often neutralise one 
 another. Besides, as each phase of the moon is supposed to preside 
 over a different set of organs, remedies are not administered on the 
 day when the patient requires them, but according to astronomical 
 laws. Thus, however necessary may be a purgative medicine, it 
 must on no account be administered on the day when the moon in- 
 fluences the bowels, nor may an emetic be given on the day when 
 the stomach is under lunar control ! 
 
 In looking over this list, I see sixteen different plants which are 
 accounted remedies in cases of snake-bite : for instance, the resin of 
 
 ^ May I be forgiven for referring to one small medical detail, attention to which 
 has, 1 know, proved my own safeguard in many years of travel. The commonest of 
 all forms of illness in tropical countries is diarrhcea ; and the general impulse seems 
 to be at once to check it by the use of brandy or chlorodyne, whereas common-sense 
 might surely- suggest that when Nature thus endeavours to throw off some irritant she 
 ought rather to be helped in so doing. I therefore strongly recommend a small bottle 
 of castor-oil in a wooden case as part of every traveller's indispensable outfit and safe- 
 guard — quite as essential as quinine.
 
 AXURADIIAPURA AXD MIIIINTALE 301 
 
 the Kekuna ' is used with other drugs in preparing a vapour-l)ath in 
 cases of cobra-bite. It is also used as a fumigation to drive away 
 serpents from houses. In cases of l)ite by the polonga, the poison is 
 expelled by stroking the wound hundreds of times with a bundle of 
 the leaves of the Madatiya.- These leaves and the bark also reduce 
 sprains. The flour obtained from the seeds of the Madu ^ is useful 
 in rheumatic affections and polonga bites. The resin of the Bii-hora* 
 is applied in cobra-l)ites, and the oil which oozes from the bark is 
 applied to cattle afflicted with murrain. The leaves of the Kurinnan "' 
 are used in cases of dysentery and snake-bite, and. are eaten as a 
 vegetable by nursing mothers to increase their supply of milk. 
 
 The tuberous roots of the gorgeous Niyangala lily — the Gloriosa 
 sitperi>a — axc used in snake-bite, and also in difficult cases of child- 
 birth. The Nidi-kumba" is distinguished as a real cure for cobra- 
 bite ; and it is added that should anything fall into the eye, the 
 sufferer must chew the whole plant, when the foreign body will be 
 driven out. The roots of the AiizxiZi {Datura fastnosa) are used as a 
 remedy against the bite of mad dogs, and also as a cure for insanity. 
 The whole plant dried and smoked as tobacco is a useful remedy in 
 cases of asthma. 
 
 However, I need not pursue this subject further. Suffice it to say 
 that those native prescriptions, many of which are of great antiquity, 
 and have been handed down from generation to generation, provide 
 for every conceivable ailment — from a wasp's sting, a hiccough, or a 
 headache to all stages of indigestion, fever, cutaneous diseases, and 
 internal complications. 
 
 But while speaking of divers remedies, I may mention that though 
 the Singhalese pharmacopoeia is apparently free from such horrible 
 decoctions of animals as figured so largely in the materia medica of 
 our own ancestors," some curious recipes for the preparation of charms 
 are quite in the style of our best witch's cauldrons. Here, for in- 
 stance, is one for the preparation of a deadly poison known as the 
 cobra-tel, which was obtained by Mr. Morris in 1840, on the occa- 
 sion of a trial for murder by means of this poison. 
 
 First of all, a cock must be sacrificed to the yakkos or demons. 
 Then live venomous snakes — the hooded cobra, the cara wella, and 
 
 ' Canariuvi Z,eyla7iicHm. - Adenaiithcra pavonina. ^ Cycas ciirhialis. 
 * Diptcrocarpus hispidus. ^ Gymnema lactifenim. 
 6 Mimosa pudica. 
 
 '' I have quoted many examples of extraordinary ' Anglo-.Saxon Leechdoms' in a, 
 paper on ' Strange Medicines ' in ' The Nineteeenth Century' for June 1887.
 
 303 TIJ'O ITArrV YF.ARS LY CFVI.OX 
 
 the tic polonga — must be taken, and a sliarp cut made on the head 
 of each. They are then suspended alive over a chattic, tliat their 
 poison may drip into it. To this is added arsenic and other drugs, to- 
 gether with the froth from the lips of three wretched kahragoyas 
 (gigantic lizards), which are tied up on three sides of the fire, with 
 their heads towards it, and are tormented with whips to make them 
 hiss that the fire may blaze. All these horrid ingredients are then 
 mixed and boiled in a human skull, and so soon as the oily scum 
 rises to the surface the cobra-tel is ready. 
 
 The fat of the kabragoya applied externally is good for various 
 skin diseases, but taken internally is accounted poisonous. (It is 
 said, however, that the Veddahs eat akabragoya with as much relish 
 as we would cat a hare.) 
 
 A horrid magic love-potion is said to be prepared by Singhalese 
 sorcerers from the large beautiful eyes of the little loris — nice little 
 furry beasts which creep slowly about on trees, and roll themselves 
 up like a ball, to sleep. It is said that the Ijarbarous mode of pre- 
 paring the love-charm is by holding the poor little creature close to 
 the fire till its eyeballs burst. 
 
 Special virtue is believed to attach to a Narricomboo or jackal's 
 horn —a small horny cone, about half an inch long, which occasion- 
 ally grows on the head of a jackal, and is hidden by a tuft of hair. 
 Both Singhalese and Tamils l)elieve that this horny knob is a talis- 
 man, and that the happy man who owns one is certain to have every 
 wish fulfilled, and his jewels and other treasures are safe from 
 robbers. 
 
 As regards medicines obtained from animal substances, the 
 musk-gland of the civet cat is greatly prized in certain maladies ; 
 peacock's flesh is considered desirable food for persons suffering 
 from contraction of the joints ; and bezoar stones, which are smooth 
 dark-green concretions, occasionally found inside of monkeys and 
 other animals, are greatly esteemed in Ceylon, as well as in India, as 
 an antidote to poison. 
 
 I may add that with the Ceylon Medical College annually turning 
 out its complement of medical students, highly trained in all the 
 learning of European schools, such details as these arc happily fast 
 receding to their right place as antiquarian curiosities, soon, we may 
 hope, to be as wholly memories of the past as are the grey ruins of 
 this ancient city. 
 
 Among the various remarkable objects to which I have not
 
 ANVRADIIAPURA AXD MIIIINrAT.E 30.-; 
 
 alluded, I must mention a group of tall grey monoliths standing 
 upright, each 16 feet above ground, and 2 feet square, the mere 
 placing of which must have been a wondrous difficulty. They must 
 have supported some palace ; but now large trees, matted with jungle- 
 vines like enormous ropes, have grown up amongst them. 
 
 Still more worthy of note are the Kuttam I'okuna, or twin bathing- 
 places — two beautifully constructed tanks, lined with great stones laid 
 in terraces, and flights of steps, with handsome l^alustrade descending 
 from every side to where water once was. The twins arc only 
 separated by a narrow grassy path. The largest is 132 feet long by 
 5 1 feet wide, and the depth is about 30 feet. I thotight this strange 
 ruin of ancient luxury, now encompassed by the great lonely forest, 
 was as remarkable a scene as any in the jungle city. One of these 
 tanks has now been restored as a bathing- place, and the other is left 
 as an interesting archseological study. 
 
 Not very far from here sits a great dark stone image of Buddha, 
 quite by itself in the heart of the forest. 
 
 Smaller pokunas are found in connection with almost all the old 
 buildings. 
 
 Of course the semi-marshy artificial lakes were very attractive 
 spots, none the less so for the numerous dark objects which, on 
 nearer inspection, invariably turned out to be crocodiles ! These are 
 from 12 to 18 feet in length, and by no means pleasant bathing com- 
 panions. I think Anuradhapura owns eight large tanks, and a good 
 many small ones : about three of the former may be dignified with 
 the name of lake. 
 
 The oldest of all is that now known as the Basawa-kulam, but 
 originally as the Abaya-wewa, constructed B.C. 505 by King Pan- 
 duwaasa. (I may mention that kulam and wewa l)oth mean tank.) 
 The second and third were the Jaya-wewa and the Gamini tank, both 
 constructed about b.c. 437 by Panduka-abaya. Then, about B.C. 300, 
 King Dewenipiatissa made the Tissa-wewa, which is more than three 
 miles in circumference. (This was restored in 1878.) 
 
 Within a short distance of the town lies the Nuwara-wewa, ' the 
 city tank,' which is supposed to be the aforesaid Jaya-wewa, a very 
 pretty tank-lake, covered with water-lilies, and with sedgy shores 
 haunted by many wild-fowl. It lies embosomed in forest, beyond 
 which rise Mihintale and other blue hills. We rode to see its 
 interesting old sluice, 2,000 years old, but were nearly sickened by 
 the horrid smell of bats.
 
 304 TJJ'O irAPPV YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Now, thanks to the energy of the recent governors, all these tanks 
 have been restored, and are in good working order. The Giant's 
 Canal, the \'oda Ela, brings the blessed water from the great reservoir 
 at Kala-wcwa to supply Tissa-wewa, whence it is distributed to the 
 other tanks, great and small. Three of the latter are severally 
 reserved, one for cooking and drinking, a second for bathing, the 
 third for washing clothes, and for horses and cattle. Every Sunday 
 evening all these are emptied, the water finding its way back to the 
 river. Then the tanks are refilled with fresh water from Tissa-wewa. 
 To avoid the possibility of pollution, no one is allowed to take water 
 from the lake itself. 
 
 As regards the direct gifts of the clouds, the rainfall of Anurad- 
 hapura averages 54 inches ; 50 inches falling in the course of a hundred 
 days annually. Its longest period of drought in recent days was from 
 May to September, 1884, when the land endured 121 'fine sunny 
 days.' (Manaar in the far north gets on an average 15 inches less 
 rain, and so recently as 1887 it numbered 159 consecutive days of 
 blazing scorching sun ! Well may its inhabitants pray for the speedy 
 restoration and multiplication of their irrigation works.) 
 
 Responsive to the gift of water, the greatful land now yields her 
 increase in abundant crops of luxuriant rice ; the Government 
 Hospital reports fewer and fewer patients from malarial fevers, 
 parangi, and other diseases due to dirt and hunger, bad air, bad 
 water, and bad food ; and in a corner of the long desolate city there 
 has arisen a pleasant modern town, with post office, telegraph, court- 
 house, rest-house, Church Mission school, and neat, well-ordered 
 bazaars. 
 
 I recently heard a little incident of that school, very suggestive 
 of the work it is doing, as one has said, in confronting the dreary 
 negations of Buddha with the glorious affirmations of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. It was on the occasion of the first baptism in the school. 
 When it became known that two or three boys had resolved to accept 
 Christ as their Master, some of the leading boys called on all to 
 declare themselves. ' Let Buddha's boys come to Buddha's side, 
 and let Christ's boys go to Christ's side,' they said. All except two 
 went to Buddha's side. Then said the others, '^A'hat ! only you 
 two ? ' And then one began to waver, and his courage failed him. 
 
 When the time came for the candidates for baptism to present 
 themselves, both lads came forward, but one objected. ' You 
 denied the Lord,' he said. Humbly and contritely the penitent
 
 Till-: l.OWKR FLIGHT OV TUK 1,840 ROCK STEPS AT MIIIINTALE.
 
 ANURADHAPURA AND MIHINTALE 305 
 
 answered, 'I was tempted, and I was overcome. I repent, and I 
 believe.' So both were baptised in presence of many witnesses, and 
 these were the first-fruits of the Christian school in Anuradhapura. 
 
 AVhen, on July 4, 1891, Sir Arthur Havelock, the present 
 Governor, paid his first visit to this historic city, he was received by 
 the children of this school singing ' God save the Queen,' and by a 
 great gathering of the people. All the tanks were full, everything 
 around was fresh and green. At every turn there were graceful 
 arches of welcome, decorated with the choicest spoils of the forest \ 
 the broad grassy roads were in perfect order ; and at night these and 
 the principal buildings and one of the great dagobas were all illumi- 
 nated, a grand display of fireworks completing the attractions of the 
 scene. Of course native music and dancing were inevitable, but 
 there was the consolation of knowing that if the guests did not fully 
 enjoy these details, the entertainers did so themselves. 
 
 I -caving Anuradhapura, we rode eight miles eastward to INlihintale, 
 a rocky mountain which from time immemorial has been held in the 
 highest veneration. It is about a thousand feet high, densely clothed 
 with forest, and crowned with huge granite rocks. It is alluded to 
 in pre-historic legends as the Cliff of Ambatthalo, and was the 
 sanctuary where, long ere the dawn of the present era of Buddhism, 
 the Buddhas of earlier ages appeared for the enlightenment of races 
 whose name and history are alike forgotten. 
 
 Consetjuently, when in B.C. 307 Mahindo, 'the royal missionary,' 
 King Asoca's son, was impelled to leave his father's court at Patali- 
 puri (now Patna), to make known the doctrines of Buddha, he was 
 miraculously transported through the air and deposited on the sum- 
 mit of this mountain which now bears his name. It so hai)pened 
 that King Dewenipiatissa was hunting the great sambur deer, when 
 a dcvi\ or good spirit, assuming the form of a deer, enticx;d him on- 
 ward almost to the summit of the mountain, when Mahindo appeared 
 to him and spoke so persuasively, that the king was converted then 
 and there, and forty thousand of his people immediately followed 
 suit. 
 
 Naturally the mountain where such a miracle had occurred be- 
 came the centre around which gathered all manner of saintly men 
 and supernatural legends. The ascent from the base to the summit, 
 once so toilsome, was made easy by the piety of royal pilgrims ; and 
 now a rudely laid stair of 1,840 great slabs of dark gneiss rock enables 
 one to mount without the slightest difficulty : indeed, it is possible to 
 
 X
 
 3o6 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 ride to the summit, which doubtless accounts for many of the steps 
 being broken and somewhat displaced. Each of these great stones 
 averages 18 feet in length, some are over 20 feet. Near the 
 summit the steps are hewn in the solid rock. Ancient records 
 attribute this good work to King Maha Dailiya, whose reign ended 
 A.D. 20. But inasmuch as this mountain has been held sacred from 
 time immemorial, it is supposed that in the dim twilight of remote 
 antiquity many successive generations contributed their share to 
 facilitating the ascent, so probably it is partly of incalculable age. 
 
 That grand stairway is of itself a most striking picture, with 
 pilgrims and yellow-robed priests ascending and descending, and the. 
 dark forest overshadowing it on either side, while great weird tree 
 cacti stretch out far-reaching amis, like uncanny spirits. Some of 
 these have stems from three to four feet in circumference. 
 
 In the days of old, the whole distance from Anuradhapura to 
 Mihintale was one continuous street, along which passed solemn 
 processions, pausing to worship at countless shrines and temples ; 
 for traditions cluster thick along the way, and on the mountain itself 
 every crag is sacred : and so they toiled up the long stairs, as we 
 also did, but I fear less reverently, till they reached the Etwehera 
 dagoba on the top of the highest peak, and there adored one single 
 hair plucked from a mole which grew between Buddha's eyebrows, 
 and which, in the year i a.d., was enshrined in this mass of solid 
 brickwork, about 100 feet high, by the devout Rajah Battiyatissa. 
 
 He was so pleased with his work, that when it was completed he 
 is said to have enveloped it in a jewelled covering ornamented with 
 pearls, and to have spread a carpet all the w^ay from the sacred rock 
 to Anuradhapura, that pilgrims might walk thence with unsoiled 
 feet ! 
 
 Happily there was no difficulty in obtaining water near the sum- 
 mit wherewith to wash soiled feet, for the Naga Pokuna, or snake 
 bathing-place, lies near the path. It is a pool about 130 feet in 
 length hewn out of the rock, and guarded by a mighty five-headed 
 cobra, sculptured in high relief from the background of dark rock. 
 It is only about seven feet high and six feet across the hood, but 
 somehow it looks much larger as it rises from the dark still i)Ool, 
 where small white lilies float so peacefully. It impressed itself on 
 my memory as a very suggestive picture. 
 
 I found a good point for a comprehensive picture from the Maha- 
 Seya dngoba, overlooking two great dagobas built on huge rounded
 
 
 FIVE-IIEADED XACA. 
 (At the Hathing-place, Mihintalf.)
 
 ANURADHAPURA and MIIIINTALE 307 
 
 shoulders of rock, and surrounded by tall fruil-bcaring cocoa-palms, 
 whose presence at tliis height, and so far inland, is very unusual ; 
 and far beyond ail extended the vast panorama of the great ])lain. 
 From another point I overlooked the site of the distant city itself, 
 with its glittering lakes, and the great monuments towering above 
 the level expanse of forest. But here the chief interest centred round 
 one of those near dagobas — namely, the Ambustele — which is of 
 graceful form, and differs from most others in that it is built of stone 
 instead of the usual brick. It is surmounted with the customary pin- 
 nacle — circular on a square base ; and around it are grouped about 
 fifty very slender octagonal pillars, some of which retain their finely 
 sculptured capitals, on which the sacred goose figures alternately with 
 grotesque human beings. Some of these had fallen, and lay half 
 buried in creeping plants. 
 
 This dagoba is said to have been erected on the very spot where 
 Mahindo and the king first met, and is supposed to contain the ashes 
 of the royal Teacher, who died here B.C. 267. 
 
 It was decidedly hot on that hill-top, and never was drink more 
 acceptable than \vere the cool young cocoa-nuts provided for us by the 
 considerate priests. It is one of the ever-recurring miracles in the 
 Tropics, that all newly gathered fruit— especially cocoa-nuts, pine- 
 apples, oranges, and mangoes — are so deliciously cool when first 
 gathered, even under a scorching sun ; but within a very i^w minutes 
 after being separated from the parent stem all their freshness vanishes, 
 and they are subject to the laws of heat like all other things animate 
 and inanimate. 
 
 A singularly dangerous and uncomfortable ledge on a high rock- 
 summit was pointed out as having been the bed of the royal priest. 
 It is canopied by another rock-mass, forming a natural arch over it ; 
 but the rocky bed is but 5 feet by 2, with a precipice on either side, 
 suggestive rather of penitential vigil than of repose. However, for any 
 one thoroughly awake and owning a good head, it is a fine resting- 
 place, commanding a grand view. It is said that on a very clear day 
 you can see the ocean on either side to east and west. On the one 
 hand you overlook the widespread forest with patches of level rice- 
 fields, and the road along which, two thousand years ago, King Tissa 
 sent his chariot to bring Mahindo from his mountain sanctuary to the 
 capital, and along which the Lady Abbess, Princess Sanghamitta, 
 travelled with her company of nuns and all their retinue to deposit on 
 jSIihintale the sixteen precious relics which were to add sanctity to the 
 
 X 3
 
 3o$ TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 holy hill. On the other side lies a deep ravine, where huge 
 masses of grey gneiss or granite lie partly veiled by luxuriant 
 creepers. 
 
 One high shoulder of the mountain is crossed with such enormous 
 angular boulders, that one marvels how they can possibly have got 
 there. They are suggestive of the blocs perches left by old glaciers ; 
 but I believe there is no trace in Ceylon of any glacial action. Camp- 
 bell of Islay, speaking of all this district, says : ' The plains are studded 
 with hills which are rocks ; many of these are rounded as rocks are in 
 glaciated countries. On top of some are large loose stones of the 
 same rock, gneiss — nothing but gneiss and angular debris of gneiss. 
 Some have caves which look like sea-caves. . . . These rocks, plains, 
 and hills might easily be mistaken for glacial work ; . . . but in 
 travelling over 600 miles in Ceylon, I could find no mark whatever of 
 glaciation. ... I looked for ice marks, and found none. . . . After 
 careful study, I believe them to be the work of the Indian Ocean, 
 aided by a tropical sun and tropical rains.' 
 
 I may mention that this gneiss is capable of taking a beautiful 
 polish, and specimens from the Mahara quarries near Colombo 
 (which furnished material for the great breakwater) show a most har- 
 monious blending of grey, green, and black ; while a short distance to 
 the north, near Heneretgodda, there is a fine granitic gneiss like our 
 own red granite. 
 
 Not far from ' Mahindo's bed ' we came to a cwnoMs gal ge, or rock- 
 cut chamber, where ascetics of old must have lived in much discom- 
 fort. It looks as if there had originally been a small cave, and this 
 has been divided into cells, with portals of solid masonry, altogether 
 out of proportion to the humble interior. A number of tall stone 
 pillars seem to have supported a temple, and water was supplied by 
 the Kaludiya Pokuna close by. Now a group of banyan-trees have 
 taken possession of the rock ; and their white twisted stems and roots 
 form a strange network overspreading the whole, while a large colony 
 of bats hold undisputed possession of the rocky cells. 
 
 Birds of bright plumage chatter in the trees, careless butterflies 
 float in the sunshine, squirrels and lizards of various sorts dart to and 
 fro, and give a touch of life to the deserted shrines ; while sundry 
 wild-flowers and graceful silver and maidenhair ferns adorn many a 
 crevice in the rocks and in the crumbling ruins. 
 
 These are too numerous to name. One group, however, impressed 
 itself vividly on my mind - namely, the Clal Sannaso looking up a
 
 ANURADHArVRA AND MIIIINTALE 309 
 
 fli<^ht of steps through the jungle to two great upright oljlong stone 
 slaljs, whereon are sculptured inscriptions in the ancient Pali, grant- 
 ing lands to the tcni[)le. All around are the usual lot of tall mono- 
 lithic pillars, which seem to have once supported a temple protecting 
 these ' stone books,' and high above all towers a red crumbling dome, 
 seen through a framework of dark foliage. 
 
 Such inscriptions are numerous, both on rocks and on old 
 buildings. Some are in the Nagara or square character, said to have 
 been introduced by Mahindo himself. On a huge rock slab near the 
 Naga Pokuna there is a very lengthy inscription, supposed to have 
 been cut about a.d. 262, in the reign of King Sri Sangabo, recording 
 curiously minute regulations for the daily lives of the priests, and the 
 ordering of all matters, temporal and spiritual, concerning the 
 Buddhist monasteries and temples in this place. So many cells are 
 assigned to each ecclesiastical rank — the readers, the expounders, the 
 preachers — each of whom took up a separate branch : some taught 
 metaphysics, and some Buddhist law. The hour of rising, subjects 
 for meditation, ceremonial ablution, the correct manner of assuming 
 the yellow robe, the morning service in the temple, the breakfast on 
 rice and congee (rice-water), and the cate of sick priests, are all 
 minutely detailed. So also are the duties of the servants, the cooks, 
 the workmen, the overseers of the village, and all who had services 
 and offices allotted to them. 
 
 It is enacted that none who follow the chase, kill poultry or other- 
 wise destroy life, shall be permitted to dwell near the mountain. All 
 matters relating to temple lands and offerings are minutely regulated ; 
 and it is required that all details of daily expenditure shall be entered 
 in account books, which shall be collected monthly, and that in like 
 manner the year's accounts shall be duly examined and verified by 
 the assembled priests. 
 
 Another long inscription specifies the exact allowance of rice, and 
 of money for the purchase of flowers, to be made to every person 
 engaged in the service of the temple, from the bana {i.e., preaching) 
 priest down to the hewers of wood and drawers of water. In this list 
 we find mention of the persons who furnish lime, the plasterers, and 
 the whitewashers — those who spread the cloths on the floor, and those 
 who do likewise for the ceiling ; there is the shoemaker who keeps the 
 monastery in sandals ; the chief thatcher and the eleven inferior 
 thatchers ; the five potters, who are to furnish five earthenware 
 chatties daily, and another who supplies ten water-pots each month ;
 
 3IO TJFO IIAPPV VFARS LV CFA'LON 
 
 a new water-strainer is also supplied every montli. To some of these 
 are allotted temple lands for cultivation. 
 
 Amongst the inmates of the monastery we find mention of the 
 warder of the granary, the warder of the preaching-house, the receivers 
 of the revenues, various clerks, a manager of the festivals, an upper 
 servant, ' who communicates orders to the twenty-four menials,' 
 several watchmen, twelve cooks, the man who procures fuel, the man 
 who goes errands, and last, not least, a physician, who receives what 
 appears to be a good allowance, besides holding a farm, whereas the 
 surgeon receives less than a common watchman or a thatcher. 
 
 The laundry department is not forgotten — the washing of cloths, 
 vestments, and bed-linen is all ordered ; but the most characteristic 
 details are those which provide for the regular supply of incense, oil, 
 and flowers for daily offering at each of the sacred shrines. The 
 cultivator of lotus flowers in the village Sapoogamiya undertakes to 
 furnish one hundred and twenty blossoms each month, while some 
 one else ekes out a living by daily sweeping away the withered 
 flowers. 
 
 How little those who graved these words on the enduring rock 
 foresaw that, after the lapse of sixteen centuries, when they themselves 
 were altogether forgotten, pale-faced men from far away isles would 
 come to decipher this record of their domestic regulations ! 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 RATNAPURA — OEMS 
 
 To Ratnapiim — The City of Rubies— Adam's Peak apparently triple — Rest-houses — 
 Full moon festival — Fireflies and glow-worms — Visit to the gem pits — Red, sapphires 
 and blue rubies — Other gems. 
 
 The Bishop most kindly arranged that I should accompany him and 
 his daughter on one of his extensive rounds of visitation, riding and 
 driving circuitously right across Ceylon ; the journey from Colombo 
 on the west coast, to Batticaloa on the east of the Isle, to occupy a 
 month ; thence travelling inland through the district of Tamankadua 
 to visit the ruins of the ancient city of Pollanarua, and so via 
 Trincomalee to Jaffna, in the extreme north of the isle. 
 
 We accordingly started from Colombo in the beginning of
 
 RA TNA P I 'RA - GEMS 31 1 
 
 August, following the course of the beautiful Kelani River right 
 inland, i.e., due east, halting the first night at Hanwella, and the 
 next at Avissawella, all the time rejoicing in lovely river scenery, 
 embowered in most luxuriant and infinitely varied foliage — all 
 manner of palms, feathery bamboos with bright yellow stems, and 
 fine trees, with the richest undergrowth of bananas, ferns, caladium, 
 and innumerable beautiful plants. 
 
 One fairy-like detail was the abundance of exquisitely delicate 
 climbing ferns, of several varieties, which in some places literally mat 
 the jungle and veil tall trees with their graceful drapery. One of 
 these is identical with that whose beauty is so fully recognised by the 
 Fijians that they call it the Wo. Kalou, ' the fern of (}od,' and in 
 heathen days wreathed it around the ridge-pole of their temples. 
 
 In Ceylon it is cut wholesale, and laid as a covering over thatch, 
 its long, glossy, black stems, like coarse horse-hair, acting as rain 
 conductors. Near Avissawella I sketched a very peculiar covered 
 bridge, with wooden pillars supporting a high thatched roof, which 
 was thus protected. 
 
 Our route lay thence south-east to Ratnapura, skirting so near 
 the base of Adam's Peak that we obtained a succession of grand 
 views of it towering above white clouds beyond the nearer wooded 
 ranges. As seen from this side, a group of three stately peaks tower 
 so conspicuously above all their blue brethren, that they seem to 
 form one majestic triple mountain, and one of these peaks, known 
 as the Bana Samanala, or ' nephew ' of the Sacred Mount, appears 
 somewhat higher than the true Sri Pada (the mountain of the Holy 
 Foot).' A grand view of this group is obtained from below a 
 wooden bridge at Ratnapura, looking up the Kalu-Ganga or Black 
 River, the whole framed in dark trees, whose stems and boughs are 
 covered with parasitic ferns. Picturesque groups of natives of divers 
 nationality, in bright draperies and with gaily-coloured umbrellas or 
 palm-leaf sunshades, crossing the bridge, add life to the scene. All 
 around arc abrupt rocks, high peaks, and hills clothed with forest. 
 A small fort on a rocky hillock protected the village at its base 
 during the Kandyan wars, and is now a pleasant spot from which to 
 watch a peaceful sunset. 
 
 (After leaving Ratnapura, still driving in a south-easterly 
 direction, these three peaks, now more distant, tower to a greater and 
 apparently uniform height, with fewer intervening ranges. For the 
 
 ' See Chapter xxv.
 
 312 TIJ'n JfAPPV YEARS TX CEYLON 
 
 benefit of future skctchcrs, I may mention that they arc seen to 
 great advantage from tlie 57;^ mile-post, with a foreground of luxuriant 
 rice-fields surrounded with clumps of bamboo and all manner of 
 palms.) 
 
 Here, as in all mountainous countries, one's enjoyment of these 
 glimpses of the upper regions is perhaps intensified by their un- 
 certainty. After watching a glorious sunrise or sunset, when these 
 lofty summits are glorified by the flood of golden light, or one of 
 those clear mornings when every crag and ravine can be plainly 
 discerned, you turn away for a little while, and when you look again, 
 there is nothing whatever to suggest the existence of a mountain 
 — only quiet banks of fleecy clouds. So he who would sketch such 
 scenes must have his materials ever at hand, and take for his motto, 
 ' Ready, aye ready.' 
 
 We found all the rest-houses along this route delightfully situated, 
 and commanding such views that there was comparatively littte 
 temptation to leave their cool shade during the hottest hours of the 
 day. As I write, I have before me sketches of the Kalu-Ganga from 
 the rest-house at Ratnapura, of the Kelani-Ganga from Hanwella 
 Fort, and many another suggestion of cloud-reflecting rivers and 
 dreamy shores, where foliage of all loveliest forms blend in visions of 
 delight. 
 
 These rest-houses for the accommodation of travellers are kept 
 up all along the principal roads, under the occasional supervision of 
 a committee of the gentlemen in charge of the district roads. They 
 are each in charge of a native, with one or more coolies to assist 
 him. The furnishings consist of table, chairs, crockery, knives, forks, 
 spoons, and very rude bedsteads, every traveller being supposed to 
 carry his own bedding and mosquito-nets. Where there is bedding, it 
 is essential to turn over the cushions and anything of the nature of a 
 mattress, as being only too likely to conceal centipedes and scorpions 
 — possibly snakes. The rest house keeper provides food, but of 
 course in unfrequented districts it is only fair to let him have notice 
 beforehand when guests may be expected. Each detail is charged 
 according to a fixed tariff. 
 
 On the principal roads some of these houses are quite luxurious, 
 but in out-of-the-way districts we halted at some which were very 
 much the reverse. Some of the road bungalows yield shelter and 
 nothing more ; for instance, that at Aralupitya, on the Batticaloa 
 road, which consisted of two minute rooms of sun-dried mud
 
 RA TNA P URA — GE} fS 313 
 
 (whitewashed), one on each side of the open space which acted as 
 dining-room. Happily the projecting thatch, supported on rude 
 wooden posts, afforded some shelter from the blazing sun. Of 
 course such houses are liable to be inhabited by many creatures, 
 more objectionable than even swarms of flies, and their natural 
 spider foes, while the high-pitched thatch is invarial)ly the home of 
 a menagerie of divers reptiles, from graceful little lizards to large and 
 energetic rat-snakes, which are the true rat-catchers of Ceylon. The 
 verandahs of even the best rest-houses are invariably haunted by 
 pariah dogs and carrion crows, all too familiar, and all seeking what 
 they may devour. An ambtdam is a rude rest-house for native 
 travellers, raised eight or ten feet on a foundation of masonry, so as 
 to be above the miasma which always clings to the ground. 
 
 However, I need not have digressed into the matter of rest-houses 
 while speaking of Ratnapura, where we were so speedily carried off 
 to the charming home of a most kind family (Mrs. Atherton). A 
 very pretty Singhalese princess, Kumarahami Eckmalagoda, came 
 with her father, Eckneligoda, to luncheon, and to invite us to their 
 house for the evening festivities, namely, the Perahara, or procession 
 in honour of the August full moon. 
 
 These continue every evening for a week. I have already de- 
 scribed the festival as observed at Kandy,' when the treasures from 
 all the temples are carried to the river, and at an auspicious moment 
 the priests cut the water with golden swords, and rapidly empty and 
 refill their temple water-vessel at the very spot thus struck. 
 
 At Ratnapura the ceremony was very weird. First there was a 
 rather pretty dance by a company of women. These were quickly 
 succeeded l)y a very horrible apparition of men dressed to represent 
 demons and wearing hideous masks suggestive of divers diseases. It 
 is odd to see the conventional expression by which every variety of 
 bodily ailment is depicted — fever by a red face, deafness by a vacant 
 look, lameness or paralysis by twisted faces, idiotcy by distorted 
 features, projecting eyes, and mouth drawn up. 
 
 The masquers who thus personated the powers of evil each 
 carried a three-pronged flaming torch, which they brandished while 
 dancing a wild whirling dance, occasionally refreshing the torches by 
 throwing on them a resinous gum, which produced a burst of (lame 
 and smoke. The whole scene was truly demoniacal. 
 
 After the dance we adjourned to the temple, which is a Dewale 
 ' See Chapter x.
 
 314 TWO JIArpy YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 or Sannii lioiisc (/>., ^ house of Hindoo gods), with a small TUiddhist 
 Vihara alongside. 
 
 I think that no priest of cither religion was present, only temple 
 headmen, of whom our host, Rckneligoda, was chief. First from the 
 Buddhist tem[)le a silver relic-shrine was brought forth with great 
 pomp, carried by the temple headman, before whose footsteps white 
 carpets were spread and sprinkled with white jessamine blossom ; 
 above the relic was borne a white canopy and an umbrella. 
 
 Then from the temple of Saman Dewiyo, alias Rama, a much- 
 venerated gilt bow and three arrows were solemnly brought forth. 
 They arc said to have been placed here by Rama himself after he 
 had therewith slain Rawana, the demon king of Lanka, who had 
 carried off the beautiful Sita, wife of Rama. These precious relics 
 were sprinkled with the holy water preserved since the previous year, 
 and placed in the mysterious ark, very much like those used in Arkite 
 ceremonies in the Himalayas. It is really a palanquin with rich 
 hangings, about 4 feet 6 inches by 20 inches, and slung on a central 
 pole. The four bearers who carried it were each robed in white, and 
 had their mouth covered with a strip of white linen. The foremost 
 couple carried a large silver umbrella of honour. A strip of white 
 carpet was also spread for these to walk on. 
 
 Each temple possesses one of these sacred arks, which is only 
 used on this festival. We had seen a party of pilgrims start from 
 Colombo some time previously, in order to reach Kataragam, far in 
 the south-east, in time for this feast, and they carried their deo or 
 god in a similar ark. 
 
 The precious arrow having been satisfactorily started, the bow 
 was next carried downstairs with equal solemnity, and the mystic 
 wand of the Kapuwas followed. Then the small Juggernath car was 
 dragged out — rather a pretty object, only 12 feet high, with a crimson 
 body on very large gilt wheels, and forming a three-storeyed square 
 pagoda, each storey having a white roof with bells at the corners. 
 
 Amid much blowing of horns and shouting, the procession then 
 formed in the moonlight, elephants bearing headmen who carried 
 large honorific umbrellas above precious objects, devil-dancers with 
 astounding head-masks going before the ark, and men on foot 
 carrying more umbrellas, one of which overshadowed another precious 
 arrow. They made a sun-wise procession round the temple, and 
 then, as it was Saturday night and somewhat late, we had to come 
 away.
 
 RA TXA PURA — GEMS 3 1 5 
 
 The drive liomc by moonlight, through vegetation of marvellous 
 loveliness, was a dream of beauty, and the breeze was scented with a 
 general perfume of orange blossom, citron, and lime, blossoms of the 
 arcka palm, temple flowers, and jessamine, each by turn sending us 
 a breath of delicious fragrance ; and the dark foliage overhead and 
 around us was illuminated by the dainty green lanterns of myriads of 
 luminous beetles, flashing to and fro in mazy dance, like glittering 
 sparks, while from many a roadside bank came the far more brilliant, 
 but likewise intermittent, light which tells of the presence of a glow- 
 worm, a fat white grub about two inches in length. As in the case 
 of our own garden centipede, the light is more attractive than the 
 light-bearer. 
 
 When captured, the light of the Ceylonese firefly proves to be 
 a very tiny glimmer, but that of the glow-worm is so l)rilliant as to 
 enable one to read even small print by its light. Scientific men have 
 experimented as to whether this light was extinguished on the death 
 of the creature, and so have killed poor glow-worms, and extracted 
 from the tail a gelatinous fluid so highly phosphorescent that they 
 could read by its light. 
 
 I returned on Monday to the Dewali to sketch the car and the 
 ark, and found a great fair going on, at which I invested in sundry 
 oddities. 
 
 But previously the great Gem-Notary of Ratnapura (owner of 
 three-fourths of the native town) had sent his carriage in the early 
 morning to convey us to his gem-pits, where white awnings had been 
 erected, carpets spread, and all made ready that we might sit in the 
 utmost comfort to see the whole process of digging and washing the 
 gemmiferous gravel, and its various stages of examination. First the 
 Milan,' as it is called, is dug up, and placed in wicker baskets, which 
 are washed in a stream close by to get rid of the clay ; then the 
 gravel is washed in long sloping wooden troughs, with divisions, at 
 intervals, of perforated zinc, with holes of various sizes. By these 
 first the largest and then the smaller stones are kept back, so that 
 only the fine gravel passes through the last grating, thence to be 
 transferred to the final trough for critical inspection. 
 
 It is a curious sight to see the keen, eager faces of the Moormen 
 (Mahommcdans), to wliom most of the gem-pits belong, and who sit 
 ])erchcd on raised seats overlooking the great troughs wherein a long 
 row of coolies (all but naked) are sifting and washing the gravel, 
 whicli, perchance, may yield some priceless gem, only to be recog-
 
 31 6 TJVO IIArPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 nised in its rough exterior by experienced eyes, but which a clever 
 coolie would detect as quickly as his master, so that the latter needs 
 to practise keen vigilance to prevent any attempt at concealment of 
 treasure-trove. Should his attention be distracted for a second, some 
 precious gem may be swallowed, as the only possible means of 
 securing it. So the man on duty sits wiih hawk-like eyes intently 
 fixed on the trough, and must not even wink till his successor relieves 
 guard. Another walks about keeping a general look-out, just to 
 ' mak' sicker.' 
 
 These Moormen, who are fine, tall, well-built men, dressed in 
 white, with high white calico hats and large sun-umbrellas, look quite 
 the superior race among their squad of workers, with neither clothes 
 nor turbans. They keep the trade of polishing and cutting gems 
 chiefly in their own hands ; the commoner stones are intrusted to 
 provincial lapidaries, but all really good gems are forwarded to the 
 masters of the art, most of whom live in Colombo. Unfortunately 
 they adhere with rigid conservatism to their primitive tools and 
 system of cutting, so as to retain the largest possible size and weight 
 at the sacrifice of brilliancy ; consequently the size of Ceylon gems 
 is generally greatly reduced, and their value equally enhanced, when 
 they have been re-cut by European lapidaries. 
 
 No stone of any value was found on the occasion of our visit, but 
 the Gem-Notary invited us to breakfast at his house, and there 
 exhibited his own priceless collection of sapphires of every size and 
 shade of colour, and also showed us the whole process of cutting and 
 polishing. This great ' gemmer ' is said to have amassed a fortune 
 of twenty lacks of rupees. He confesses to having cleared 800,000 
 rupees from one alluvial mine near Ratnapura ; and one of his 
 relatives pointed out some huge gneiss rocks from beneath which he 
 had washed out 20,000 rupees' worth of sapphires, the average price 
 in Ceylon of a good sapphire being ;£6 a carat ; but of course a 
 specially fine or large stone commands a purely fancy price, according 
 to what some wealthy purchaser may be willing to pay for it. Ceylon 
 is, par excellence, ' The Land of the Sapphire,' these being so abundant 
 and rubies comparatively rare, therein proving the converse of 
 Burmah, where the ruby is pre-eminent and sapphires comparatively 
 scarce. 
 
 Ratnapura, as is implied by its name, ' The City of Rubies,' is 
 the centre of the district chiefly noted for the abundance and value 
 of the precious stones which have been found in its alluvial deposits,
 
 RA Ti\A P URA - GEMS 3 1 7 
 
 chiefly in the beds of clay or of fine gravel washed down from inac- 
 cessible mountain crags — which of course suggests that if these only 
 could be reached, such wealth of gems could be obtained as would 
 outshine all fables of Eastern romance. 
 
 Though gem-bearing deposits exist in other provinces, and many 
 precious stones are annually collected from the beds of rivers and 
 from extemporised gem-pits in many parts of the Isle, this province 
 of Sabaragamuwa and some parts of the Morawa Korale have sup- 
 plied the largest number and the most perfect gems. 
 
 I believe that in no other country is there found so great a variety 
 of gems as in Ceylon ; in fact, true diamonds, emeralds, and turquoise 
 are said to be the only absentees. Sapphires, rubies, topazes, ame- 
 thysts, garnet, alexandrite, chalcedony, chrysobcryl, pleonaste, jacinth, 
 carbuncle, diamond-spar, aquamarine, cat's-eyes, moonstones, and 
 tourmalines are abundant, and every now and again some fortunate 
 'gemmer' picks up a treasure worth a fortune. The total absence of 
 diamonds is singular, as the famous Golconda diamond-mines lie so 
 near in Southern India. 
 
 But Nature keeps all these treasures enfolded in such ugly crusts 
 that only a practised eye can ever guess which of all the fragments of 
 coarse gravel is in truth the priceless gem. I think that the garnet 
 and its first cousin, the cinnamon-stone, are almost the only excep- 
 tions to this jealous concealment. Here and there in the forests of 
 the eastern and southern provinces there lie masses of gneiss which 
 literally gleam in the sunlight by reason of myriads of tiny sparkling 
 garnets embedded in the rock. The cinnamon-stone presents itself 
 in the same unveiled style, certain great rock-masses being so thickly 
 encrusted therewith that gem collectors occasionally carry off large 
 pieces in order to extract the cinnamon-stones at their leisure. 
 
 A'ery beautiful masses of garnets were found while cutting the 
 tunnels on the new line of railway above Haputale, with individual 
 crystals about a quarter of an inch in length, and there loo were 
 found lumps of quartz ranging in colour from a rich red to a milky 
 white, and some of a clear blue, said to prove the })resence of true 
 cobalt. 
 
 If only Mother Earth would yield all her crystals ready polished 
 like the glittering garnet, then Ceylon would really be a fairy Isle of 
 Gems ; for not only do her hidden treasures include almost every 
 recognised precious stone save the three I have named, but her list 
 acquires inconceivable variety owing to Nature's freaks in the matter
 
 3iS TJFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLOX 
 
 of colouring, whereby she assimilates different stones so closely as to 
 prove hopelessly confusing to the eye of any ordinary mortal. 
 
 For instance, when we talk of sapphires, we naturally think of 
 lovely rich blue crystals ; and though it is easy to recognise as 
 legitimate members of the family innumerable shades ranging from 
 the deepest invisible blue, too dark to be of any ornamental use, to 
 the palest clear azure, it becomes extremely perplexing to be shown 
 pure white crystals, strangely resembling diamonds, and yellow 
 crystals, exactly like cairngorms or topazes, and to be assured that 
 they are all sapphires. Mr. E. W. Streeter, who is the great authority 
 on these matters, enumerates the colours of Ceylon sapphires as 
 'azure-blue, indigo, dark-red, violet-blue, poppy-red, cochineal, 
 carmine, rose-red to rose-white, milk-white, yellow-white, French- 
 white, lemon-yellow, and green ! ' I have also seen a clouded 
 sapphire of a greenish opalesque colour, said to be due to water in 
 the stone. 
 
 In like manner true rubies are found of every shade of colour. A 
 spinel naturally suggests a lovely rose-coloured gem, but here we may 
 see sparkling bright blue spinels. In point of commercial value the 
 rose-tinted rubies of Ceylon rank lower than the blood red rubies of 
 Eurmah, and I am told that the S-inghalese have discovered a method 
 of enriching their colour by wrapping them in shell-lime and exposing 
 them to intense heat. The Ceylonese stone, however, is considered 
 to excel that of Burmah in brilliancy and fire, and very valuable 
 blood-red rubies are sometimes found. One weighing 26 carats, and 
 valued at ;i^5,ooo, was found at Ratnapura in 1889. 
 
 There is one variety both of ruby and sapphire which is, I am 
 told, peculiar to Ceylon, namely, the asteria or star-ruby and star- 
 sapphire, both of which, when skilfully cut and polished, reveal a 
 luminous six-rayed star of light on a blue or red ground. It is a very 
 lovely gem. 
 
 I do not know whether the starry rays are due to the same cause 
 as the beautiful light in the luminous olive-green cat's-eye ; that, I 
 am told, is attributed to the presence of particles of asbestos, a theory 
 which seems confirmed by the successful imitation of this gem which 
 is manufactured from crocidolite, a mineral closely related to 
 asbestos. 
 
 On the other hand, the Chinese succeed in so rutting a pearly 
 shell as to produce a very pretty so-called cat's-eye, with a luminous 
 internal ray.
 
 RA TNA P URA - GEMS .^ tg 
 
 The true cat's-cye is peculiar to Ce}lon. Very fine stones are 
 often found at Ratnapura and in Rakwane, though the finest speci- 
 mens have generally been found in the gem-pits of Morowa Korale 
 district, considerably farther south. This is one of the gems the 
 value of which is specially affected by the caprice of European fashion, 
 according to which its price rises and falls in a manner exasperating 
 to gem speculators. In the Oriental market, however, it holds a 
 steady place, being especially prized by the Malays. 
 
 In 1889 a splendid cat's-eye was found in the coffee district of 
 Dikoya, said to be the largest and most valuable yet discovered. It 
 was picked up by a man who was unloading a cart of earth, and at 
 once sold for thirty rupees. The purchaser resold it for 700 rupees, 
 and the next owner secured for it 3,000. In its uncut state it weighed 
 475 carats. A\'hen cut, it was reduced to 170 carats, and was pur- 
 chased for 9,000 rupees by a merchant who \alued it for the London 
 market at 30,000 rupees. A small piece of the original stone weigh- 
 ing 6i, carats was sold for 600 rui)ees. (The nominal value of the 
 rupee is 2s., but owing to the depreciation of silver its value when 
 transmitted to England is at present about \s. 5^/.) 
 
 Another lovely luminous stone, supposed to have been formerly 
 found in other countries, but now, I believe, only in Ceylon, is the 
 moonstone, which has a soft silvery lustre suggestive of moonlight. 
 It is found in some places so abundantly that the supply exceeds the 
 demand, so it commands a very low price, and exceeding pretty orna- 
 ments in really good taste can be bought for a very small sum. 
 
 The Morowa Korale has also yielded almost all the fine speci- 
 mens of a very lovely gem, the alexandrite, so called in honour of the 
 Czar, in whose dominions it was first discovered in the far north. 
 The peculiarity is that by daylight it's colour is a rich bronzed green, 
 whereas by gas or candle light it appears to be of a vivid crimson — 
 a phenomenon attributed to the presence of copper and oxide of 
 lead. Beautiful and interesting as is this stone, I am told that its 
 commercial value is barely one-twentieth that of a rub}' of good 
 quality. Sometimes a stone is found, and distinguished as an alex- 
 andrite cat's-eye, which by daylight is dark green, with a cross line 
 of white light. This at night assumes the ruby colour aforesaid. 
 
 A very remarkable feature in the beautiful collection of gems ex- 
 hibited in the Ceylon Court at the Indian and Colonial I'^.xhibition in 
 1886 was the extraordinary variety of sapphires of various colours, no 
 less than fifty different lints being there exhibited. Beautiful specimens
 
 320 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 of all the gems of the Isle were gathered together under the watchful 
 care of Mr. Hayward, who, with unwearying courtesy, endeavoured 
 to teach me and many another inquisitive pupil how to recognise 
 familiar stones, all diguised in unwonted colours, as if bent on a 
 masquerade. 
 
 Even the topaz, departing from its traditional golden hue, comes 
 out in fancy dress. Not satisfied with assuming every variety of 
 colour, from pale amber to the richest brown, it occasionally indulges 
 in various shades of red or blue, and there have been found harlequin 
 specimens combining blue and yellow in the same crystal ! Occasion- 
 ally the topaz assumes a faint sea-green, so exquisitely delicate that 
 even experts disagree as to whether such a stone is really a precious 
 blue topaz or ' only an aquamarine,' in which case, by a freak of the 
 gem-market, its value would be greatly deteriorated. 
 
 How truly absurd are these fantastic standards of value I I re- 
 member one of my sisters taking a number of 'Welsh topazes to be 
 set by an eminent jeweller, who admired them greatly, and, assuming 
 them to be Oriental, gave her a large estimate of their value. But 
 on her mentioning where she had found them, and expressing regret 
 that she had not collected more, his countenance fell as he ex- 
 claimed, ' Welsh topazes ! Oh, in that case they are worth a mere 
 trifle ! ' 
 
 You can understand that here, where, in addition to the innumer- 
 able skilful frauds of the trades in sham gems, Nature herself does 
 so much to puzzle the unwary, the purchase of precious stones is not 
 altogether a wise form of investment for non-professional travellers. 
 In fact, the Moormen take very good care that these shall never even 
 see their really valuable stones, which they keep securely concealed, 
 and like to retain as secure property. 
 
 As regards the topaz, not only are its own varieties of colour per- 
 plexing, but there are other stones amongst which the untutored eye 
 finds it hard to distinguish. Such is the little-prized cinnamon- 
 stone, a crystal of a rich warm orange-brown tint — a description 
 which also applies to the zircon or jacinth, which, however, ranges in 
 colour from clear gold or delicate pink to fiery sparkling red. The 
 latter are very rare, and consequently highly valued. Some specimens 
 are tinged with olive-green. The zircon is sometimes worn as an 
 amulet to guard its owner from evil spirits and to assure the blessing 
 of sound sleep. Closely akin to it are the red jacinth and the white 
 or grey jargoon, which is commonly known as the Ceylon or Matara 
 diamond.
 
 RA TNA P LIRA - GEMS 32 1 
 
 Then comes the lounnaline, a lovely spvirkling gem, which, how- 
 ever, not being the fashion, is of small value. It is so like a yellow 
 zircon or a Scotch cairngorm, that I for one despair of ever being able 
 to distinguish one from the other, or indeed from the chrysoberyl, 
 though tlic latter sometimes assumes an aesthetic sage-green peculiar 
 to itself. These lead on to chrysolites, and to sundry other stones 
 more or less precious. 
 
 In some alluvial districts where the promise of gems seems abun- 
 dant, they are found to have undergone the same process of disinte- 
 gration as the rock in which they were once embedded, and crumble 
 to atoms at a touch ; so that there are streams, such as the Manick- 
 (langa, or River of Clems, in the south-east of the Isle, the sands of 
 which are literally composed of glittering particles of quartz, mica, 
 rubies, sapphires, and other crystals, which, gleaming in the sunlight 
 beneath the rippling waters, seem like the realisation of some 
 Eastern fable, till closer inspection proves them to l)e so thoroughly 
 pulverised as to be literally worthless to the gem-seeker, albeit so 
 fascinating to the eye which can recognise beauty apart from intrinsic 
 value. These crystal sands are the trainers of the great gem family, 
 for though not destined to be themselves exalted to high estate, they 
 supply a polishing material of great value in the hands of the gem- 
 cutter. 
 
 Such rivers suggest that somewhere near their rock-cradles there 
 must be aljundance of such lovely rose-coloured quartz as is occa- 
 sionally found in large blocks near Ratnapura, as if Nature had wished 
 to carry out her ruby colouring on a wider scale. She certainly must 
 have established her favoured laboratory somewhere among the great 
 hills of Sabaragamua, whose crumbling crags have scattered such 
 l)recious fragments in every rocky ravine and over all these alluvial 
 l)lains. 
 
 To a race so keenly addicted to gambling as the Singhalese, the 
 possibilities of such glorious prizes as may reward the gem seeker 
 are irresistible, and so a very large number of the natives adopt this 
 profession, somewhat to the neglect of their fields and gardens. 
 1 )uring the dry season between Christmas and Easter, when the 
 streams are well-nigh dried up and their gravelly beds laid bare, 
 hundreds of the poorer classes devote themselves to searching for 
 such crystals as the sweeping torrents of the previous months may 
 have brought from many a remote mountain. 
 
 But the wealthier gem-seekers, who can afford preliminary outlay.
 
 322 T]]-0 IIAPPV YI'.ARS IX CEYT.ON 
 
 find it more remunerative to work systematically by sinking pits in 
 the plains at such points as they judge to be hopeful. They dig 
 through layers of recently deposited gravel, soil, and cabook till they 
 reach the 'illan' or gemmiferous gravel, which lies from five to 
 twenty feet below the surface. Ratnapura stands in the centre of a 
 great gravel bed some thirty miles square, and all thus buried ; but 
 pits have been sunk in every direction by gemmers, ancient or 
 modern. Of the latter, some are now being sunk to a depth of So 
 to loo feet. The cabook is a hard deposit of plum-pudding stone 
 formed of water-worn [lebbles embedded in hard clay. In this are 
 many circular hollows or pockets- natural jewel-cases — washed out 
 by the eddying currents of ancient rivers, and in these many of the 
 finest gems have found a resting-place. The illan is generally found 
 beneath the cabook. 
 
 I spoke of ' preliminary outlay,' but indeed this is not excessive. 
 The necessary equipment of a gemming party consists of a few 
 mamotees or spades, a few crowbars, a long iron sounding-rod, called 
 'illankoora,' for gauging the illan, and a few baskets of split bamboo. 
 When they have dug to a depth of five or six feet, should the sides 
 seem likely to give way, four jungle-posts are inserted, one at each 
 corner, and cross-beams round the sides and centre-beams. As the 
 digging goes on, this frail support is likewise deepened till the gravel 
 is reached, where it is scooped up and washed in the bamboo baskets. 
 As with all other mining, gemming is exceedingly speculative. A pit 
 may prove workable in a few days, or it may involve months of toil, 
 and finally be abandoned as useless. It is said that of every ten 
 pits sunk, only one pays. 
 
 In that one, however, there is scarcely a basketful of gravel which 
 does not contain some inferior kind of gem, and these are called 
 ' dallam ' and sold by the pound, at about nine rupees, after having 
 been minutely searched for any precious stones, which are found in 
 the proportion of one jjer cent., and of course really valuable ones 
 arc \ery much more rare. However, even the occasional find of a 
 real treasure sufifices to keep up the excitement. For instance, about 
 two years ago, quite a poor man tried his luck in a gem-pit, and 
 straightway lighted on a sapphire of such value that a knowing hand 
 at once secured it for 600/., and a few days later doubled his money 
 by selling it in Colombo for 1,200/. It was expected to fetch 3,000/. 
 in London. 
 
 Unfortunately, although some very poor agricultural labourers
 
 RA TXA P I 'RA GEMS 
 
 323 
 
 certainly eke out their scanty living by working in gem-pits, most of 
 the money thus won by gemmers of the poorer class is said to be 
 squandered in gambling and drinking, so that perhaps (though some 
 injustice is apparently involved) it is not altogether to Ije regretted 
 that recent (iovernment ordinances have imposed a certain check on 
 promiscuous digging. 
 
 Under the rule of the Kandyan kings, the right of digging for 
 gems was a royal monopoly, and the inhabitants of certain villages 
 were told off for this purpose. The office was hereditary, as was also 
 that of the headmen who superintended the work. Under British rule 
 this monopoly was dropped, and the gemming industry was thrown 
 open to all men, with the sole restriction that no one might dig on 
 Crown waste lands without a license. Portions of Government land 
 were sold at high prices expressly as gem-lands, and the right of 
 private individuals to seek for gems in any way they pleased on their 
 own land was never questioned. 
 
 In 1890, however, when European companies decided to bring 
 European capital to commence systematic mining for gems, a Clem 
 Ordinance was enacted, which is said to be equal to an initial tax of 
 10 per cent, on problematic gains, and is said to have practically 
 killed the native industry and stopped the work of some 20,000 
 diggers. It enacts that a license costing five rupees must be 
 obtained for every pit opened, in whatever locality — even in a man's 
 own garden— and a further sum of 75 cents per head is levied for 
 every person taking part in the work in the next three months. 
 Should the number of persons thus licensed for employment in that 
 pit be exceeded, the whole license may be cancelled, and the extra 
 worker may be fined fifty rupees or suffer six months' imprisonment. 
 One of the chief dangers of mining is that of a sudden influx of water 
 into the pit, necessitating an immediate accession of helping hands ; 
 but of course no men would care to risk such penalties in helping 
 their neighbours, and as the formalities to be observed in altering a 
 license generally involve a delay of three or four days, the immediate 
 result of this legislation has been the abandonment of a very large 
 number of pits. 
 
 At present, reports concerning systematic work vary considerably, 
 one company being reported to have recovered ^1,000 worth of gems 
 in a week, while another, which had expended about ^^5,000 on 
 sinking pits, only recovered gems worth about p/^400 and one gentle- 
 man w^ho had sunk ^1,000 got nothing at all. These not being 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 
 
 riro iiAPrv vf.ars ix ciiylon 
 
 endowed witli llic l)ii\ eyes of the Moormen, are naturally suspit-ious 
 that their gems have been i)ilfered, and regret that the regulations of 
 the African diamond-fields are not introduced into Ceylon. There, 
 they say, a man is locked up for having in his possession a gem for 
 which he cannot account satisfactorily, while in Ceylon the man who 
 holds a gem can prosecute the man who dares to suggest that it has 
 not been honestly obtained. 
 
 Doubtless a solution for all these difficulties will be found in 
 course of time, and there seems every prospect that the gem treasures 
 of Ceylon will from this time be developed on a more scientific 
 .system. The great object is to try and discover those mountain 
 geese which lay these precious eggs ; in other words, to find the 
 matrix whence the sun and rains and rivers have extracted those 
 specimens from which we gather such suggestions concerning that 
 hidden treasury. It has been proved that in Burmah limestone forms 
 the matrix of the ruby, so the first thing to be done in Ceylon is to 
 examine all the veins of limestone along the course of the Ratnapura 
 River from its source in the heart of the mountains. If once rubies 
 and sapphires can be detected in these, then the work of mining could 
 be begun in real earnest, with good prospects of remunerative results. 
 
 Those who are interested in mineralogy find abundant food for 
 study in the very varied minerals thrown out of the gem-pits, in- 
 cluding infinitesimal atoms of gold, which, however, is not found in 
 quantities that would pay to work. Mica is found pretty freely, and 
 iron is abundant in certain districts. 
 
 But the only mineral of much importance in Ceylon is plumbago, 
 in which there is a very large trade, hitherto almost entirely in the 
 hands of natives, who dig for it in the plains. It is thought probable 
 that the companies who go to the mountains in search of gems will 
 there also find the cradle of the plumbago, which they hope to work 
 by horizontal tunnels at far less expense, and without the danger from 
 water which attends the deep excavations in the low country. In 
 some of these, shafts have been sunk to a dei)th of upwards of 200 
 feet, necessitating the free use of pumping machinery. It is esti- 
 mated that, including carters, packers and carpenters, who manufac- 
 ture casks for the export of this mineral, about 24,000 persons are 
 employed in connection with this industry, which is chiefly carried 
 on in the north western and western provinces, though the southern 
 piovince likewise yields a fair share. But three-fourths of the whole 
 supply is dug from pits in the Kalutara and Kurunegala districts.
 
 RATNAPURA GEMS 325 
 
 It is often fuund at Ratiiapura and elsewhere in large kidney- 
 shaped masses lying loose in the soil, and also forms so large an 
 ingredient in the gneiss rocks that these seem speckled with bright 
 silver. ^Vhen this rock decomposes, it resembles yellow brick, and 
 is so soft that when newly dug out, it can be cut to any shape, but 
 quickly hardens when exposed to the air. It is a valuable material 
 for the manufacture of firebricks, as it resists the greatest heat. 
 
 The annual export of pure plumbago from Ceylon (chiefly to the 
 United States and Europe) amounts to about 240,000 cwts., valued 
 at about two and a half million of rupees. Many and varied are its 
 uses, in supplying the lead for our best Cumberland pencils, blacking 
 for our stoves, and an important requisite in polishing steel guns and 
 steel armour for warshii)S ; it is also largely used in colouring dark 
 glass in photographic studios, in piano and organ factories, and even 
 in hat factories, where it is used to give a peculiar softness and 
 smoothness to felt hats ! 
 
 So what with plumbago and gems, the minerals of Ceylon travel 
 over a very wide range of the earth. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 B.\DULLA AND HAPUTALE 
 
 Ratnapura to Ratticaloa — Festival cars— Polite priests — Belihul-Oya — A pink rain- 
 bow — Badulla — HalduniniuUa — Haputale Pass — The railway — The Happy Valley 
 Mission — The Ella Pass — Badulla — Ants and ant-eaters — In Madoolseme — Burning 
 the forest— A Rom in Catholic procession — Strange compromises — Forest con- 
 servancy— Chena-farniing — Lantana — The Park Country — Rugam tank. 
 
 From Ratnapma we travelled by easy stages to Haldummulla, halt- 
 ing for the nights at Pelmadulla, Belangoda, and Belihul-Oya, 
 passing through most beautiful scenery and meeting many exiles 
 from the old country, to whom the sight (jf other white faces was an 
 unmistakable pleasure. 
 
 At Peln.adulla we exjilored the Buddhist \'ihara, and noted with 
 interest the prevalence of triple symbolism : saints sitting on clouds, 
 each holding three lotus blossoms ; three gods looking down from 
 heaven on a murder scene ; three fishes, eS:c. To this the [iriests 
 seemed to attach no significance ; and yet in their ordination service
 
 j26 Tiro IIArPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 each question is repeated thrice, which is surely suggestive of some 
 mystic meaning. 
 
 I sketched a great gilded festival car, three storeys high, and two 
 very odd great gilded candelabra on wheels, each five storeys high, 
 /.£'., with five tiers of crystal lamps on gilded and {)ainted branches. 
 These are wheeled in procession with the great idol car, which is only 
 taken out once a year, at the April May festival, which is that of the 
 Singhalese New Year. 
 
 The priests gathered round to watch the sketch, and my attendants 
 enlarged on the many sacred shrines which I had visited and sketched 
 in many lands. They declared that I had thereby indeed acquired 
 much merit ! ' They were guilty of making such very complimentary 
 speeches that I could not resist putting the' courtesy of one friendly 
 priest to a cruel test by asking whether he would be very sorry if, in 
 his next transmigration, he should be born a woman ; whereupon he 
 craftily answered that ivhen that happened, then he would be glad, 
 which I thought a very neat answer. But he dared not shake hands 
 with anything so bad in this life ! 
 
 In all this district the climate is peculiarly favourable to the 
 growth of tropical plants ; for while the great rock-ramparts receive 
 and refract the full heat of the sun's burning rays, numerous streams 
 rush down from the mountains, keeping up an abundant supply of 
 moisture. So in this warm damp atmosphere all lovely things of the 
 green world flourish^ exquisite tree-ferns and wonderful creepers, 
 which interlace the larger trees in an intricate network. Strange 
 orchids find a niche on many a bough, as do also very brilliant fungi, 
 purple, yellow, or red. One remarkable feature of these jungles is 
 that one never sees a dead tree ; the white ants dispose of them all, 
 except in the plantation districts, where whole forests have been felled 
 and burned, and the number of charred trees fairly beats even these 
 industrious workers, whose huge nests, or rather castles, form such 
 conspicuous features in the forest. 
 
 In swampy places and along the l)anks of streams hereabouts 
 there grows a peculiar sort of bamboo, very tall and slim, and devoid 
 of all lateral branches. It seems to exist in order to supply ready- 
 made fishing-rods. 
 
 1 Sonic are more discriminating. I was one day sketching in the temple of Tien- 
 dong, a great Buddhist monastery in China, when a kindly old priest, who had 
 watched my work witli great interest, asked quite sadly what was the good, and what 
 merit could there be in my doing all this, if I did not really reverence the Poossas, t.e., 
 the saints and their images ? See ' Wanderings in China,' vol. ii. p. 41.
 
 BADULLA AND IIAPUTALE 327 
 
 The view from the rest-liousc at lielihul Oyais especially channing ; 
 the house stands on the brink of a clear rocky stream, which rising in 
 the grand Maha-l'>liya, a/ias Horton Plains, rushes down a deejj-set 
 valley from a grand amphitheatre of intensely blue hills. A little 
 lower it assumes the name of ^^'elawe-ganga, and so traverses the 
 green province of Uva, 
 
 Just before sunset the whole scene was transformed. Looking 
 eastward, the sky and hills were all flooded with the loveliest rose- 
 colour, the valley bathed in ethereal lilac, while the whole was spanned 
 by a strangely luminous yellow and pink rainbow, losing itself in a 
 mass of dark trees. I have never seen anything else in the least like 
 that fairy archway. 
 
 Brilliant dragonflies — some pure scarlet, others emerald-green — 
 skimmed over the surface of that bright stream, and many splendid 
 butterflies floated joyously in the sunshine. ^Ve also saw strange 
 leaf-insects, so like green leaves, that, till they flew away, it was im- 
 possible to believe them to be alive ; and grasshoppers with red 
 bodies and bright yellow crests hojiped about us in most inquisitive 
 style. 
 
 On the followiiig day we drove on, alwa)s through lovely country 
 and along the base of great hills, whose tumbled fragments lay in 
 huge boulders at the base of precipitous crags, till we came to 
 Haldummulla, 3,250 feet above the sea, where we were enfolded in 
 genial kindness, Miss Jermyn and I in one hospitable home, and the 
 Bishop at another. A number of the neighbours had assembled to 
 meet the Bishop and attend the Sunday services, which were held in 
 the courthouse, and bright hearty services they were. 
 
 It is a beautiful spot, lying as it does at the foot of a grand 
 mountain range, yet looking down over a vast expanse of cultivated 
 land, chiefly coffee, and a sea of forest through which flow hidden 
 rivers, and far away, seventy miles distant, lies the glittering sea, on 
 which we could sometimes distinguish ships, and before sunrise we 
 could discern the sea l)oth to the east and south. From our next 
 halt, at Haputale, we could distinguish the exact position of far 
 distant Hambantota by the gleaming light on the saltpans. 
 
 We woliien-folk had two days of delightful rest amid these pleasant 
 surroundings, while the Bishop diverged to meet a party of [)lanters 
 and hold service at Lamastotte. This was the first district in which 
 coffee estates struck me as really beautiful, these grand sweeping hill- 
 sides, rising far above us on the one side, and on the other sloping
 
 328 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 down to the low dislrict oulslrelchcd Ijcforc us, all clothed with the 
 glossy verdure of the low bushes, something like small Portugal 
 laurels, and all covered with fragrant blossom, white as newly fallen 
 snow. 
 
 At that time King Coffee reigned supreme, and every available 
 foot of land was given up to this one culture, producing in most 
 districts an effect of great monotony. Since then it has passed 
 through very evil days, and in large districts has been wholly sup- 
 planted by tea and other products ; but it is pleasant to learn that in 
 this district, where it was so pre-eminently luxuriant, a large proportion 
 has recovered, so that coffee once more holds a foremost place in the 
 province of Uva. 
 
 AVe left Haldummulla and all the warm-hearted friends there with 
 much regret, and mounted the steep ascent (all by admirable roads, 
 both as regards engineering and upkeep) till we reached the famous 
 Haputale Pass, 4,550 feet above the sea, where a small roadside 
 village offered rest and shelter to weary wayfarers, and a halting-place 
 for the tired bullocks which had dragged up heavily laden waggons. 
 
 Never has any place undergone more rapid change than has been 
 wrought here within the last two years. For the long-desired railway 
 which is to open up the province of Uva and bring it into direct com- 
 munication with Colombo, is to cross the dividing range at Patipola, 
 which is just above Haputale, at a height of 6,223 feet al)ove the sea, 
 thence descending to the south-western plains. 
 
 Hitherto the railway terminus has been at Nanuoya, five miles 
 from Nuwara Eliya, and the difticulties of making a railway over the 
 twenty-five miles of mountain and crag which separate Nanuoya from 
 Haputale seemed well-nigh insurmountable. Now, however, all 
 difficulties are being conquered by skilful engineers and the patient 
 toil of an army of five thousand workers, chiefly Tamil coolies, but 
 including many Singhalese and Moormen —all, of course, under 
 European direction. And for all this great body of men daily rice 
 and all other necessaries must be provided, and the once quiet village 
 of Haputale is now a centre of busy hfe, and also unfortunately of a 
 nest of too tempting arrack, beer, and gin shops, to say nothing of 
 an opium den, all of which are responsible for a grave amount of 
 crime and lawlessness. 
 
 The railway work is divided into two sections- -one from Nanuoya 
 to Summit, passing below the ]ilk Plains, and crossing comparatively
 
 BADULLA AXD HAPUTALE 329 
 
 tame grassy hills and i)alenas, hut iiivolviiiL; a rise of ahtjut 1,000 feet, 
 the other from Haputale to Summit, rising 1,673 f(;et over a rocky 
 chaos of shattered cliffs and ravines. At the actual summit there is 
 a level of about three miles, and at a point not far from there, in the 
 direction of Nanuoya, will he the station for the Horton Plains, the 
 grand sanatorium of the future, which lies only about three miles off 
 the line of railway ; so that the weakest women and children will be 
 able without any conscious effort to breakfast at Colombo and sleep 
 on these breezy plains, where already a comfortable rest-house and 
 most lovely garden await their coming. 
 
 Little will travellers over the completed line dream what tremen- 
 dous difficulties have been overcome in preparing the way for their 
 easy journey over a region which can only be described as a chaos of 
 huge crags, break-neck precipices, dangerous and impassable gorges, 
 necessitating a continuous series of heavy cuttings, viaducts, embank- 
 ments, and long tunnels through solid rock. In the course of a 
 single mile seven tunnels follow in such rapid succession that 
 travellers will be sorely tantalised by too rapid glimpses of the 
 magnificent scenery all around — mountains seamed with rocky 
 ravines, clear sparkling streams glancing among huge boulders or 
 dashing in foaming cataracts over sheer precipices to the cultivated 
 lands far below ; tea and coffee estates all sprinkled over with 
 enormous rocks, each as large as a cottage, and then the vast pano- 
 rama of the sunny lowlands of Uva, its vast expanses of grass-land 
 and rice stretching far, far away to the ocean. 
 
 But whatever they see can convey no idea of the toil and danger 
 faced by those who traced this road and commenced its construc- 
 tion — of their hair-breadth escapes as they crept along rock ledges of 
 crumbling quartz or gneiss, with a wall of mountain above, and a 
 sheer precipice below from 300 to 500 feet in depth, or zigzagged by 
 giddy tracks down the face of crags where goats could scarcely climb 
 for pleasure. 
 
 Still less will they realise how pitiless rains disheartened the 
 coolies and soddened the earth, occasioning terrible landslips, in one 
 of which seven jioor fellows were buried alive, while another brought 
 down a thousand cubic yards of boulders, earth, and gravel. Awful 
 gales likewise, for days together, have positively endangered the lives 
 of the workers, and proved a powerful argument in favour of adher- 
 ing to the hea\ier carriages of a ' broad gauge ' line, rather than )ield
 
 330 TIIV HAPPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 to the Icmplalion of constructing a cheaper ' narrow gauge ' as was 
 urged by some economists, and most vigorously and ceaselessly 
 opposed by the veteran Editor of the ' Ceylon Observer.' 
 
 It is said that 'a turn begun is half ended,' and great was the joy 
 of the isolated planters on this side of the island when the long- 
 desired railway was actually commenced ; and energetically has it 
 been pushed on 1)\- all concerned. 
 
 So my recollection of Haputale as a lonely mountain village will 
 seem as a dream of a remote past to those who now anticipate the 
 time when it will rank as a busy town. 
 
 Thence, leaving all beautiful scenery behind us, we drove about a 
 couple of miles down the pass to Bandarawella, which is all grassy, 
 like an average tract of English downs. 
 
 In this immediate neighbourhood another amazing transformation 
 has occurred, namely, the formation of the Haputale Happy Valley 
 Mission, where the Rev. Samuel Langdon, of the Wesleyan Mission, 
 has originated a whole group of excellent institutions, as a beginning 
 of good work in this hitherto most grievously neglected region — 
 neglected because so remote and isolated that till very recently com- 
 paratively few Europeans found their way here, and still fewer knew 
 anything of the wretchedly poor and utterly ignorant inhabitants. 
 Even old residents were startled when they realised the existence of 
 an agricultural population of about 180,000 Singhalese, besides many 
 'I'amils, inhabiting upwards of 800 villages, which are scattered over 
 the numerous valleys among the grassy foothills and downs which lie 
 between the mountainous Central Province and the ocean, forming 
 part of a region about the size of Wales, which has quite recently 
 been created a distinct province, namely, that of Uva. 
 
 In the whole of that vast district there were till within the last 
 year or two only eight schools for boys — not one for girls ; and 
 although in some villages there are pansala^ i.e., Buddhist-temple 
 schools, in most cases the priest in charge can neither read nor write 
 himself; indeed, in 5;ome large villages not one man, woman, or 
 child can read. 
 
 Could Christian schools now be established in these villages, a 
 very great step would l)e gained, as otherwise the Ciovernment grant 
 will go to aid this wretched paiisala system of indigenous education, 
 and it will then be far more ditificult to secure a footing than in the 
 now vacant field. But except in the town of Badulla and its imme- 
 diate neighbourhood, very little Christian work was attempted till
 
 BADULLA AND HA PUT ALE 331 
 
 quite recently, the various missionary bodies being totally unable to 
 find men or money to carry it on. 
 
 Now small beginnings have been made by a very limited number 
 of Episcopal and Wesleyan missionaries, whose work consists chiefly 
 in walking from village to village, preaching to all who will listen to 
 them, and almost everywhere they are received with kindness, and 
 their message is often heard with apparent interest. Only in some 
 places the people are so sunk in misery and immorality that all their 
 faculties are dormant, and amendment seems to themselves impossible- 
 They say, ' We must steal and sin if we would live. What you say 
 is good, but it cannot help us, surrounded as we are by poverty and 
 vice and disease.' The almost invariable attitude towards religion of 
 any sort is one of total apathy, and even temporal discomfort is 
 accepted as the inevitable result of having failed to obtain merit in 
 a previous stage of existence. 
 
 Nowhere have these preachers met with any active opposition, 
 but they find a wide-spread dissatisfaction with Buddhism, and 
 especially with the priests, of whom these people frequently speak in 
 terms of contempt. Though some are nominally Roman Catholic, 
 the majority, while })rofessedly Buddhist, are in truth devil-wor- 
 shippers, sunk in depths of gloomy superstition, and praying only to 
 malignant spnits in order to avert evil. As regards the beneficent 
 teaching of Buddha, not only the people, but even many of the 
 priests, are so ignorant of its first principles, that any argument 
 founded thereon is utterly wasted ; but many listen gladly to preach- 
 ing which tells of hope both for this life and for the future. So the 
 report of these pioneers is that everywhere they find an open door, 
 and that nothing save lack of men and of means to support them 
 prevent them from carrying the ^Vord of Life to all these 800 
 villages. 
 
 Some years ago the Wesleyans opened a successful school for 
 girls in BaduUa, till quite recently the only one in the whole of Uva, 
 which, as I have just observed, is a district about the size of ^Vales. 
 Here about fifty bright, happy-looking girls are now being well brought 
 up in a good Christian home, where they are taught clean, tidy habits, 
 and are trained to definite work, so as to be able in after years to earn 
 their own living. 
 
 Mr. Langdon, however, could not rest satisfied till a definite foot- 
 ing had been obtained in the heart of the most neglected district, and 
 graduall}- his grand scheme took definite form.
 
 332 TWO HAPPY YKAPS IX CEYLOX 
 
 llaving ()l)laine(l from C.uvcrnnicnt a grant of 200 acres of fine 
 vallcy-palcna at this spot, noted for good soil and a perfect climate, 
 with an annual rainfall of 90 inches, and within easy reach of 
 about 9,000 of these ])oor villagers, he has established a home for 
 orphans and destitute children, where all shall receive ' such a train- 
 ing as, under Clod's blessing, shall make them good, honest, and 
 industrious men and women.' The children under nine years of 
 age are taught in an elementary school, and older ones in the in- 
 dustrial school. 
 
 Here also are a convalescent hospital and a hospital for children, 
 where bright wards gay with coloured prints and the loving care of 
 skilful attendants seem like a foretaste of heaven to the poor little 
 sufferers who are brought here from their miserable homes. But 
 owing to scarcity of funds, only a few wards are as yet furnished, and 
 from the same cause the devoted superintendent and his wife are 
 often compelled to refuse admission to the other departments, in 
 many cases, especially that of sorely tempted half-caste girls, where 
 they know that rejection means perdition. 
 
 In his very latest letter, Mr. Langdon tells of his grief at having 
 been compelled to refuse admission to poor little orphan children 
 who were without food or shelter, too young to work, but old in 
 suffering ; but he had already received as many as he dared to under- 
 take till funds improve. This is the only home in Ceylon where 
 starving children are received without payment, but it is evident that 
 it stands in great need of further support. 
 
 At nine years of age girls are drafted off from the elementary 
 school at Haputale to a girls' home and orphanage in Badulla, which 
 was opened in 1889 to receive orphans and destitute girls ; but so 
 excellent is the training there given, that the managers are besieged 
 with requests to receive the daughters of respectable parents as 
 boarders, and it abeady numbers fifty pupils. The tuition is the 
 same as that given in the Wesleyan Industrial School for Girls at 
 Kandy, namely, all that can fit girls for domestic service as nurses 
 and under-ayahs, or for wise housekeeping. They are taught 
 cooking, biscuit making, dress-making, sock and stocking knitting, 
 sewing, and mat-weaving. 
 
 No caste prejudices of any kind are allowed ; the education is 
 religious throughout, without compulsion, no preference whatever 
 being shown to Christian children. 
 
 Boys are in like manner transferred when nine years of age to the
 
 BADULLA AND HAPUTAI.E 333 
 
 industrial schrx)l, which can receive nearly a hundred, but they 
 remain in the Hapi)y \'alley, and in its workshops are duly in- 
 structed in various branches of industry, such as carpentry, smith- 
 work, shoemaking, and agriculture, and instead of growing up to be 
 loafers and lying vagabonds, they are taught to earn their own 
 living, and to be truthful and useful, and a comfort to their friends 
 and neighbours. 
 
 Boys and girls are also educated according to the requirements 
 of the Public Instruction Code. 
 
 Many of the poor little creatures arrive at the Home in a most 
 filthy condition, apparently not having been washed for months, but 
 allowed to run wild in the villages, and even for weeks together in 
 the jungle, with no one to look after them in any way. Such is the 
 raw material from which Mr. Langdon hopes to produce valuable 
 agents for the regeneration of Uva, taking for his motto the verse, 
 'A little child shall lead them.' ' 
 
 A very important feature of the Mission is a reformatory home, 
 the first thing of the sort ever commenced in Ceylon. Its dormi- 
 tories, offices, teaching, and workrooms are all pronounced admirable, 
 as are also the flourishing form and orchard, which are being 
 worked entirely by lads who, under the former system, would have 
 been serving their apprenticeship in crime in the various prisons of 
 the Isle. The farm is well stocked with cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, 
 and poultry, and it has a small tea and coffee estate, rice-fields, 
 garden, and dairy. 
 
 This reformatory, which is capable of accommodating a hundred 
 boys, is about three-quarters of a mile distant from the orphans' 
 home, so there need not be injudicious amalgamation of young 
 criminals with other lads, till the former have started on a new tack, 
 which is rarely long delayed amid such totally new influences. The 
 situation of the Mission is perfect, being a beautiful elevated 
 plateau in a very healthy isolated situation. There is, however, a 
 resident doctor to watch over the health of this rapidly increasing 
 community, and every account of it tells of bright, happy young 
 faces, already proving how truly they respond, physically and 
 morally, to the care bestowed on them. 
 
 Another good work now conmienced for the benefit of various 
 districts of Uva and other hitherto neglected parts of the country has 
 been the establishment by Government of field-hospitals. A group 
 
 I 'Story oi the Happy Valley Mission.' By the Rev. Samuel Langdon. London.
 
 334 
 
 riJ'O HAPPY YEARS TX CF.YI.ON 
 
 of cottages willi mud walls and Uiatched roofs is erected in some 
 isolated spot. These are the wards, beside which a larger bungalow 
 acts as dispensary and dwelling for the medical officer and dispenser. 
 Of course there is always a little preliminary prejudice against 
 foreign methods of treating the sick, but very soon this is overcome, 
 and the wards are sometimes crowded with poor sufferers, thankful 
 to have the opportunity of obtaining skilled relief. 
 
 Leaving Bandarawala, we drove to the head of the Ella Pass, and 
 suddenly found ourselves looking down a magnificent valley formed 
 by a whole series of mountains, some crowned with majestic crags, 
 some still partially clothed in forest, others all terraced with infinite 
 toil for the cultivation of mountain-rice, and all alike vanishing from 
 our view in the deep blue gloom of the ravine far below. I am told 
 that ' Ella ' means a waterfall or rapid, which in this case must apply 
 to the great Magama River, which rushes down the gorge far out of 
 sight, suggesting during what countless ages the mountain torrent 
 must have toiled and fretted ere it carved for itself this mighty 
 channel. 
 
 Beyond these nearer mountains lay outspread the beautiful Park 
 Country, stretching right away to ]]atticaloa and the sea. The 
 district is well named, for in truth it is one broad expanse of fine 
 open park of good pasture-land and sweet short grass, well watered 
 by several large rivers and numerous clear streams, and interspersed 
 with clumps of fine old trees. Near the base of the great central 
 mountains are ranges of low rocky ridges, partly clothed with tall 
 lemon-grass, much higher than a man, sometimes growing to a 
 height of twelve feet. It is terribly punishing to those who have to 
 force a way through it. In some places it is dense and tangled, in 
 others it grows in tall tufts from the rock crevices. Some of the 
 plains are so covered with lemon-grass that, as the wind sweeps over 
 it, it is like an undulating sea of waving corn. 
 
 Right away from the mountains the Park itself is studded with 
 detached masses of granitic gneiss, like fortresses of giants, but 
 beautified by trees of large growth, which have contrived to find root 
 in the crevices. 
 
 There being no rest-house at this place, quite an ideal temporary 
 bungalow had been prepared for the Bishop— a framework of 
 bamboos and strong posts filled in and thatched with stout aloe 
 leaves and jaggary and talipot palm-leaves, all the inside being 
 draped with calico, and decorated with the graceful blossoms of the
 
 BADULLA AND HAPUTALE 335 
 
 cocoa and arcca palms (like bunches of splendid wheal). This 
 large bungalow was divided into central dining-room, with side bed- 
 rooms and dressing-rooms all complete. A very handsome pandal 
 (arch of welcome) was erected in front of the house, and a comfort- 
 able stable and house for the servants at the l)ack. This really was 
 luxurious camping in the wilds ! 
 
 Hearing of a small rock-temple in the Ella Pass, I started in 
 search of it. It proved rather a long expedition, ending in a scramble 
 across paddy-fields and along a hillside. It proved to be a very 
 small temple amid most picturesque surroundings, huge rock- 
 boulders, fine old Bo-trees, temple-trees loaded with fragrant 
 blossom, and tall palms. Within the temple are sundry odd paint- 
 ings and images of coloured clay ; amongst others, one of a large 
 cobra coiled up, with its head forming the canopy above a small 
 image of Buddha sitting cross-legged upon the coils. 
 
 In looking over my sketches, I see that under a crag at the head 
 of the pass I have written Sri Pada Kcta, which suggests its posses- 
 sion of a holy foot-print, probably a modern imitation of that on 
 Adam's Peak. 
 
 Descending the pass by a steep zigzag road, and following the 
 course of a river fringed with luxuriant clumps of bamboo, we came 
 to Oodawere, a pretty and hospitable home, further embellished by a 
 number of ' potato-trees,' which, as I have already mentioned, are 
 really gorgeous trees, robed in purple and gold, — that is to say, they 
 are loaded with blossoms like our brightest potato-flowers, only three 
 times as big. (This was in the month of August.) 
 
 Thence we drove on to BaduUa, the capital of Uva, a very pretty 
 little town in the midst of a grassy and well-wooded and well-watered 
 plain, about 2,200 feet above the sea-level, and surrounded on every 
 side by fine hills of very varied form. There is a considerable 
 amount of rice culture round the town, which seems like an island 
 crested with cocoa-palms rising from a sea of velvety green. It was 
 here that the Buddhist people erected a neat Christian church to the 
 memory of Major Rogers, in token of their appreciation of his wise 
 and im[)artial rule in this district.' 
 
 That church, which has now been considerably enlarged and 
 beautified, was charmingly decorated in honour of the Bishop's arrival, 
 and an exceedingly graceful pandal was erected at the entrance to 
 the churchyard, the road for a considerable distance being bordered 
 
 ' See Chapter viii.
 
 336 Tiro IIArPY YEARS IN CF.VLON 
 
 with fringes of torn yellow hanana-lcavcs, the effect of which, in con- 
 nection with the pandal, is \ery light and characteristic. 
 
 A number of Europeans had assembled to meet the Bishop, so 
 there were full congregations and pleasant social gatherings. Several 
 Kandyan chiefs appeared in their gorgeous full dress, with the large- 
 sleeved brocade jackets, ' peg-top ' shaped swathing of fine mush'n, 
 and wonderful jewelled hats. 
 
 I sketched the whole scene from the old fort, which is now used 
 as a courthouse, where many very varied groups of Moormen and 
 Malays, Tamils, Singhalese, and Burghers came and went the 
 livelong day. Fine hills, rich foliage, tall cocoa and areca palms, 
 and cosy-looking red-tiled buildings combined to make up a very 
 attractive scene, blue and white convolvulus matting the nearer 
 shrubs, and the balmy air fragrant with the scent of rosy oleanders. 
 
 I am told that among many necent improvements have been the 
 formation of a small lake, always a pleasant feature in a landscape, 
 and also of a park and racecourse. An excellent new feature is a 
 botanic and experimental garden for the acclimatising of all possible 
 novelties in the way of desirable fruit-trees and vegetables. Already 
 the apples and pears of Badulla are making their mark, and potatoes 
 weighing upwards of a pound each are a delightful reminder of 
 Britain, dearer to her exiled sons than the most aml)rosial tropical 
 fruits. 
 
 I found another sketching ground at the Kataragam Devale, an 
 old Hindoo temple to Skanda, the god of war, which attracted our 
 unwilling attention by the deafening noise of its 'services' daily at 
 5 A.M. and all the evening — truly a very odious neighbour. The 
 Buddhist Vihara was happily less noisy. It and a dagoba of con- 
 siderable size date from about a.d. 200, so they are distinguished by 
 some of the calm of old age ; otherwise Buddhist temples are wont 
 to rival those of the Hindoo gods in the terrific noise produced by 
 the roar of shell-trumpets, the beating of drums, and the shriek of 
 shrill l)rass pipes. 
 
 I was told of a curious carved stone at another temple, on which 
 is sculptured a short two-headed snake, a sight of which was 'good 
 for broken bones ;' so of course we set out in search of this interest- 
 ing object, but failed to find the temple. 
 
 But there are stones of more pathetic interest in the old cemetery, 
 some of which date as far back as the ' rebellion ' of 1817-18, a time 
 when the lives of British officers and their wives in these remote forts
 
 BADULLA AXn HAPUTALE 337 
 
 must have been sorely hcsel with anxieties. One cruinhhiig stone 
 marks the grave of a young bride only sixteen years of age. Another 
 marks that of Mrs. Wilson, who came here from her home at 
 Stratford-on-Avon, and died in 181 7, aged twenty-four. She was the 
 wife of the (Government Agent, who shortly afterwards was shot by 
 an arrow, and whose head was cut off and exposed on a tall pole. 
 Her grave is protected by the roots of a fine old Bo-tree, which have 
 enfolded it, thus marking it as sacred in the eyes of the natives, to 
 whom otherwise a neglected cemetery is simply a valuable quarry 
 whence to abstract ready-hewn flat stones just suitable for grinding 
 curry-stuffs upon ! Of course this sacrilege is punished when detected 
 but its perpetration is easy and the temptation ever-recurring, so that 
 many and many an old gravestone has vanished in all parts of the Isle. 
 
 In all this district we heard grievous complaints of the ravages 
 wrought by white ants, and of the ceaseless vigilance necessary to 
 guard against their advances. In native houses an extra plaster of 
 cow-dung is applied to the floors and walls, and is considered 
 efficacious ; but somehow super-fastidious Europeans do not 
 appreciate this remedy sufficiently to introduce it into their homes ! 
 Hut certainly the white ants do muster strong, their great earth 
 castles, five or six feet in height, and six or eight in circumference at 
 the base, being common roadside objects. Near some of the tanks 
 the ground is strewn with little green hillocks about three feet in 
 height ; these also are ant-hills overgrown with grass. 
 
 The ants, of all sizes and colours, have two singular and very 
 different foes. One is the strange little ant lion, which is the hideous 
 larva of an insect like a small dragonfly. It is an oblong hairy 
 creature, only about half an inch long, with a very large stomach and 
 a very small head. It has two large arms and six legs, with which it 
 contrives to move backward, Init so slowly that it could never capture 
 a dinner without stratagem. So it makes a small funnel shaped pit 
 in the sand, and buries itself at the bottom with only its eyes and 
 arms visible. There it lies in wait for any rash ant which ventures 
 too near the edge ; as soon as one does and begins to slip down-hill, 
 the ant-lion throws sand at it and so helps it down, when he sucks 
 its life -juices and then jerks out the corpse. 
 
 The other foe is on a much larger scale, and is known as the 
 great-scaled ant-eater' a very different creature, lu)we\er, from the 
 ugl\- hairy ant-eater''^ of South America, although, like it, it has no 
 ' Manis pcntadactyla. ^ Myrmecopr.aga. 
 
 Z
 
 23S TWO llAPPV YEARS L\ CEYLON 
 
 vestige of teeth, only a long glutinous tongue with which to lick up 
 the ants. The Ceylonese and Indian ant-eater is clothed in a coat 
 of mail, being covered with hard plates of clear horn, and when 
 frightened it hides its head between its legs and curls its tail beneath 
 it and right over its head, which it covers completely, presenting the 
 appearance of an armour-plated ball. The strength of several men 
 combined could not uncoil that little creature against its will. Hence 
 its common name, 'pengolin,' which is derived from a Malay word 
 meaning ' to roll up.' 
 
 It breaks into the ants' citadels with its sharp powerful claws, and 
 licks out the garrison with its long slender tongue. It is a pretty 
 creature, and grows to about three or four feet in length. Being 
 easily tamed and very gentle, it makes rather a nice pet, though its 
 habit of burrowing seven or eight feet into the ground makes it 
 somewhat troublesome, its claws being so powerful that it con dig 
 through anything. It climbs trees as nimbly as a cat, but is never 
 seen by day. It wanders about during the night, but steals back to 
 its hole at dawn. 
 
 The Bishop's next work lay in the district of Madoolseme. The 
 first stage was right up-hill to Passara, where there was a school to 
 be examined ; then on to Yapane, above which rises a hill naturally 
 fortified by most singular ridges of gneiss. Then ' upward, still 
 upward,' till we reached Mahadova, where the owner of man)- nice 
 dogs gave us cordial welcome and most luxurious quarters. 
 
 Here we witnessed one of the most characteristic sights of Ceylon, 
 and one which remains stamped on my memory as one of the most 
 awesomely grand scenes it is possible to conceive. A tract of i6o 
 acres of dense forest, clothing both sides of a deep mountain gorge, 
 had been felled, and had lain for some weeks drying in the sun. 
 
 I may mention that the method of felling is ingenious as a means 
 of economising labour. Beginning at the lowest level, all the trees 
 are half cut through on the upper side ; gradually the regiment of 
 woodcutters ascend, till at last they reach the summit, when the top- 
 most trees are entirely cut, and fall with a crash, carrying with them 
 those below, which in their turn fall on the next, and so on, like a 
 row of ninepins crashing all down the hillside, till the last ranks have 
 fallen, and the glory of the beautiful forest is a memory of the past, 
 only a few trees here and there remaining standing for a little 
 longer. 
 
 When the timber is fairly dry, then the planter waits for a day
 
 BADULLA AND HAPUTALE 339 
 
 when the wind is moderate and in the right direction to blow the 
 flames away from his plantations or reserved forest, and then the 
 blaze begins. 
 
 On the present occasion we were posted well to windward, and 
 then fire was applied simultaneously in many places, and spread with 
 amazing velocity, till all the fires joined in one wild raging sheet of 
 flame in the depths of the valley, whence fiery tongues shot heaven- 
 ward mingled Avith dense volumes of smoke of every concei\able 
 colour, white, blue, yellow, orange, and red, changing every moment 
 and covering the whole heaven with a hot lurid glow, while the 
 thundering crash of falling timber and roar of the mad flames were 
 deafening. 
 
 We ran rather a narrow risk of contributing some particles of 
 charcoal to the coffee, having taken up a commanding position, so 
 as to look right down the gorge, in a corner of reserved forest, 
 beneath the cool green shade of a group of beautiful tree-ferns and 
 beside a clear streamlet, in which it was refreshing to bathe our 
 scorched faces. Happily we obeyed a shout from more experienced 
 friends, who bade us come down quickly, which we most unwillingly 
 did, and only just in time ; for hardly had we done so, when the 
 flames swept upward in resistless fury like corkscrews, twining 
 upward and onward. We rushed away half-suffocated, and soon the 
 whole patch of reserved forest was one sea of fire, which even 
 extended its ravage^ to some neighbouring coffee. Next morning 
 we had occasion to ride along a narrow path overlooking the scene, 
 and only a veil of blue smoke curling from among the blackened 
 ruins of the forest told of the mad conflagration of the previous 
 day. 
 
 'I'here is great luck in the matter of burns. Sometimes the fires 
 die out too soon, and the timber is insufficiently burnt. Sometimes 
 they rage too furiously, and the soil is scorched to such a depth as 
 to be grievously injured. No sooner is the land cooled than an army 
 of coolies overspread it, and cut square holes in every possible corner, 
 no matter how rocky the soil (indeed, the rockier the better), or how 
 dizzy the precipitous height ; wherever a crevice can be found, there 
 a precious little bush must be inserted, and after a while, as its roots 
 ex[)and, a small artificial terrace must probably be built, to afford 
 them space and prevent the rains from washing all the earth from 
 their roots. Nulhiug can be more hideous than the country at this 
 stage. 
 
 z 2
 
 340 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 After a while, however, matters improve, and by the time the 
 coffee shrubs attain their proper size, the whole country becomes 
 densely clothed with glossy green, and though the black stumps and 
 great charred trunks remain standing for many a year, they do 
 'gradually decay, or else become so bleached by the sun that the 
 coffee fields resemble a gigantic cemetery, with headstones utterly 
 without number. 
 
 Twice a year the whole country appears for a few days as if 
 covered with a light shower of snow, each bush being veiled with 
 wreaths composed of tufts of fragrant white blossom. These in due 
 time give place to bunches of green berries, which eventually become 
 scarlet cherries, very tempting to the eye, but insipid to the taste. 
 Within these lie two precious coffee-beans ; the red pulp is removed 
 by machinery, and is useless, except as manure for the bushes— a 
 sort of cannibalism is it not ? The beans are then dried in the sun, 
 and the skin or 'parchment' with which each is coated must be 
 removed, after which they are ready for roasting. 
 
 When the coffee is dry, it is tied up in sacks of a given weight 
 (each so heavy that few Englishmen would care to carry it half a 
 mile), and these are carried by the coolies on their heads for many a 
 weary mile over hill and dale to the nearest cart-road. 
 
 The dress of the coolies is remarkable. Some indeed have little 
 clothing save an old grain sack covering the head and shoulders, and 
 affording a miserable shelter froni the pitiless rain ; but the majority 
 are provided with an old regimental coat, scarlet, blue, or green, no 
 matter what colour. So this is the final destination of our military 
 old clothes ! I think their original wearers would scarcely recognise 
 their trig apparel when thus seen in combination with a turbaned 
 head and lean black legs swathed in dirty linen. 
 
 You cannot think what a new sensation in coffee it is to go and 
 rest in one of the great coffee stores, where the clean, dry beans are 
 piled up in huge heaps, like grain in a granary at home. The stores 
 come in useful for ever}thing. All manner of public meetings, from 
 church services to balls, are held in them, and coffee-bags are the 
 most orthodox seat ; rather hard, however ; for comfort, commend 
 me to the good honest coffee heap, on which many a tired planter 
 has slept without a sigh for spring mattresses. 
 
 On that same day (August 30), at Mahadova, we chanced to 
 witness another strangely characteristic scene, namel)', what the Tamil 
 coolies themselves described as a Catholic Saami (i.e., idol) festival.
 
 BAJV'I.LA AND IIArUTALE 341 
 
 This was a Roman Catholic procession, in whicli, liowcvcr, I beheve 
 all the coolies, of whatever creed, took part. We heard their shouts 
 in the far distance, and presently they came in sight, winding down 
 a steep path through the coffee, or rather winding up hill and down 
 dale, in order to visit all the Saami houses (/>., idol shrines) in the 
 neighbourhood, carrying with them four almost life-sized images, in 
 very tall, open shrines, which were simply canopies on poles, painted 
 crimson and yellow. Much the largest of these, shaped like a 
 gigantic crown, contained an image of the Blessed Virgin ; two of the 
 others contained St. Sebastian, and a fourth St. Anthony. All were 
 borne en platforms on men's shoulders. 
 
 With the exception of the cross on the top of each shrine, and 
 of innumerable gaudy banners, there was nothing whatever to 
 indicate that this was not a Hindoo festival, accompanied by all 
 the usual adjuncts — the firing of guns, the beating of tom-toms, 
 and wild dancing of half-naked brown men with white turbans, 
 dancing all the way, precisely as at the festivals in honour of their 
 gods, and led by the temple-dancers. 
 
 When they had. visited all the idol shrines, and danced a while 
 at each, they were to halt beside a stream, where all would bathe, 
 preparatory to a great feast of curry and rice, after which dancing 
 was to be resumed by torchlight. 
 
 Often when I hear thoughtless persons, who certainly cannot have 
 looked below the surface, compare the results of Protestant and 
 Roman Catholic missions in heathen lands, greatly to the credit of 
 the latter, I wish they could have a few opportunities of really 
 observing the radical change required in the converts of the former 
 as compared with the mere change of denomination which is accepted 
 by the latter in every country where I have seen the working of both 
 missions. No wonder that their converts are numerically large. 
 
 In Ceylon we were told of one Roman Catholic chapel in which, 
 during the temporary absence of the priest, the congregation had 
 introduced three images of Buddha and several others ; and we our- 
 selves saw a small Roman Catholic chapel with the image of liuddha 
 on one side and that of the Blessed \'irgin on the other, apparently 
 receiving equal homage. I fancy, however, that that also must have 
 been without the leave of the priest. 
 
 The curious policy of seeking to beguile heathen nations into 
 accepting a spurious so-called Christianity by the closest possible 
 assimilation to their national pagan rites has unfortunately been very
 
 342 T]Vn UAPPy YEARS TN CF.VLON 
 
 widcl)' sanc'tioncd l)y the (Ihuif^h of Rome in all ages, hut nowhere 
 has it heen carried to such excess as in Southern India, whence these 
 Tamil coolies have immigrated. 
 
 In A.D. 1606, with the full sanction of the Provincial of the 
 Jesuits, and of the Archbishop of Goa, a Jesuit priest, Robert de 
 Nobili, established himself at Madura, where he asserted that he was 
 a Brahman of the West, directly descended from Brahma, and of the 
 highest possible caste. 
 
 He forged a sacred Veda purporting to be of high antiquity, in 
 which some Christian doctrines were cunningly blended with much 
 Hindoo imagery. In presence of a large assembly of Brahmans 
 he swore to having received this Esur Veda from Brahma himself. 
 
 This Brahman of Rome assumed the yellow robe of the venerated 
 Saniassees, and daily marked on his forehead the circular spot of 
 powdered sandal-wood which denotes caste. His small crucifix, 
 hidden in his waist-cloth, was suspended from a twisted thread very 
 similar to that worn by Brahmans. He carefully performed all 
 ceremonial ablutions, and certainly shrank from no self-denial in 
 working out his strange compromise, for he abjured all animal food 
 — meat, fish, and even eggs, confining himself to the vegetables, milk, 
 and clarified butter which is the fare of true Brahmans. 
 
 Moreover, the better to assert his superior position, and assuredly 
 forgetting the teaching of his Master, he associated only with Brah- 
 mans, feigning the utmost contempt for all pariahs and other low-caste 
 people. 
 
 He soon obtained credit for great wisdom and sanctity, and gained 
 so many adherents that he is said to have baptized 100,000 persons, 
 largely drawn from the higher castes — converts who naturally were 
 not to be distinguished from their heathen brethren in aught but 
 name. 
 
 On the authority of his forged Veda, he prohibited the worship 
 of the Hindoo idols, but freely incorporated all the processions most 
 dear to the people. Amongst others he adopted all the tumultuous 
 ceremonies of the Juggernath night-festival, when huge gaily- 
 decorated idol cars were borrowed from the Tamil temples. So- 
 called Christian images having been temporarily substituted for those 
 of the idols, and loaded with offerings of flowers, the ponderous cars 
 were dragged in procession by excited crowds, amid the blaze of 
 rockets and fireworks, the din of tom-toms, drums, and trumpets, and 
 the acclamations and shouts of the people. Half- naked dancers
 
 BADULLA AXD HAPUTAI.K 343 
 
 streaked with vermilion and sandal-wood powder, danced wildly 
 before the cars, and all the crowd wore on their foreheads the marks 
 symbolic of idol-worship. Yet these, with the exception of the 
 dancers and musicians, who were hired from the nearest heathen 
 temple, were the so-called Christians of Madura, and the images 
 borne on the cars were supposed to represent the Saviour, the 
 Blessed Virgin, and the Apostles. 
 
 Franciscans, Dominicans, and other religious orders having com- 
 plained of his methods of carrying out mission-work, the matter was 
 referred to Rome, but after an inquiry which lasted thirteen years, 
 the Pope pronounced a decision which practically left things as they 
 were, even approving the wearing of the Brahminical thread by con- 
 verts, provided it was sprinkled with holy water, and that the converts 
 were invested with it by a Romi.sh priest. They might also continue 
 to mark their foreheads with ashes of sandal-wood, provided they 
 abstained from using ashes of cow-dung. 
 
 Thus sanctioned, this sham Christianity flourished, till after forty- 
 two years of vain toil, de Nobili retired, sick at heart, and his followers 
 for the most part returned to their primitive Hindooism. 
 
 But till the expulsion of the Jesuits from India in 1759, there v/as 
 no limit to the compromises by which they sought to gain nominal 
 converts. 
 
 Not content with attracting the heathen to their churches by 
 elaborate mystery-plays and theatrical representations of the great 
 events in the life of our Lord, these very adaptive teachers en- 
 deavoured to appeal to popular prejudice by blending with their own 
 religious ceremonials all the most striking pageants of Hindooism, 
 and, notwithstanding all the edicts of Pope Gregory and his suc- 
 cessors, these were retained until, in 1704, Pope Benedict XIY, 
 issued a most rigorous Bull commanding their suppression. 
 
 The Jesuits frankly confessed that obedience to the Papal decree 
 would result in the loss of most of their adherents, and so it proved. 
 Multitudes to whom the adoption of Christianity had been solely a 
 change of name resumed that of ' Hindoo,' and ere long the stringent 
 regulation was relaxed and the pitiful compromise resumed. 
 
 From Mahadova we rode to various other estates, sometimes 
 through lovely bits of ferny jungle, sometimes across great tracts of 
 burnt forest, with their wreaths of blue smoke still curling upwards 
 from the blackened waste which had taken the place of all tlic fair 
 vegetation, the growth of centuries.
 
 3^4 7^/^'^^ iiAPpy ) i:ars r\ c/:]7.on 
 
 To all lovers of heauliful iialure it must be sad to think of the 
 hundreds of square miles of primeval forest which have thus been 
 totally destroyed in clearing ground for the growth of coffee, cinchona, 
 and tea, in all the mountain districts, the greater part of the belt of 
 the Isle between the altitudes of 3,000 to 5,000 feet being now totally 
 denuded. 
 
 l)Ut looking down from high mountains on the great plains sea- 
 ward, we still overlook vast expanses of forests— in fact, about three- 
 fourths of the eastern lowlands are said to be still forest or scrubby 
 jungle, from which the line timber has all been cleared for com- 
 mercial puri)oses. Till (piite recently there was no fully organised 
 Forest Department to regulate the ravages of the woodcutters, and 
 certainly no sentimental pity or reverence led these to spare either 
 the monarchs of the forest or the trees of tender years ; consequently 
 many of those most valued for the beauty of their timber have now 
 become exceedingly rare. 
 
 'J'he necessity for such supervision was recognised so far back as 
 1858, when Sir Henry Ward appointed my brother to act as timber 
 and chena inspector. But in those days travel was exceedingly diffi- 
 cult, and no man could really attempt to do more than make himself 
 acquainted with the forests of his own province, which in my brother's 
 case meant the neighbourhood of Uatticaloa. Moreover, as his sole 
 assistants were two (rovernment peons, it was evident that, keenly 
 interested as he was in this work, he could not do very much. 
 
 It was not till 1873 that Sir AVilliam CJregory laid the foundation 
 of a more systematic conservancy of forests by the appointment of 
 four foresters for the four northern provinces, and assistants for other 
 districts, whose duties include not merely checking improvident 
 destruction of existing timber, but also establishing in the neighbour- 
 hood of the great tanks, nurseries for valuable forest trees. 
 
 My brother's appointment as chena inspector refers to the singular 
 method of cultivation known as ' chena-farming,' which is a system 
 of nomadic farming involving perpetual locomotion, inasmuch as, 
 owing to the poverty of the soil, the same ground is never occupied 
 for more than two years at a time, and is then left to itself for fifteen 
 years ! This strange custom has been adhered to for upwards of 
 two thousand years, so it follows that ' primeval forests ' had been 
 cleared off the plains long before European planters felled those on 
 the mountains. The extent of ground which has been subject to 
 this treatment is enormous.
 
 r,AI>riJ.A AN J) HA PC TALE 345 
 
 The process of chena fanning is that the inhabitants of a district 
 proceed to fell and burn a tract of two or three hundred acres of 
 forest. This space is then fenced and apportioned to the number of 
 famihes concerned, each of whom erects a temporary hut. In these 
 they live in a cheery sort of gipsy fashion, some making and baking 
 earthenware vessels, and others spinning thread or rearing poultry, 
 while waiting for the growth of the crops they have sown. 
 
 In a few months the newly reclaimed land is rich with cotton 
 plants, sugar-cane, Indian-corn, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, millet, 
 yams, melons, and other vegetables. Some of these are ready for 
 the market within four months ; so they are gathered, and fresh seed 
 is s(jwn for a second crop, which is ready four months later, the culti- 
 vators all the while keeping sentinels posted in little huts, ceaselessly 
 .watching day and night to ward off incursions from thievish beasts 
 and birds. 
 
 In the second year the company divides, some remaining to guard 
 and gather the cotton, which does not come to maturity for two years, 
 tlie others proceeding to clear new ground by felling and burning 
 more forest. When the cotton crop is gathered, then the last farm is 
 abandoned, and luxuriant natural growths rapidly spring up. 
 
 A good deal of chena is devoted to the growth of plantains, which 
 arc very fine the first year, but deteriorate so much in the second year, 
 that by the third they are generally abandoned. 
 
 A marked characteristic of all land which has been thus suffered 
 to relapse is the density of the thorny jungle, with few, if any, large 
 trees, but a thick matting of rope-like creepers, many of which, and 
 of tile bushes, are armed with wicked hooked thorns of every variety, 
 making the scrub impassable to any creature but an elephant. 
 
 Masses of prickly cactus grow luxuriantly on such clearings, as 
 does also the much-reviled lantana, which was introduced only about 
 sixty jears ago, solely as an ornamental shrub. It is uncertain 
 whether it was brought from brazil by Sir Hudson Lowe or from the 
 West Indies by Lady Horton. Its original home is the Cape of C.ood 
 Hope, where, however, it is by no means so rampant as in these 
 lands of its adoption. It is a pretty plant, covered with little bunches 
 of orange and rose-coloured flowers or small dark berries ; the latter 
 find great favour with birds, who carry the seed in every direction, 
 and it has acclimatised to such good purpose, that now it springs up 
 unbidden on every morsel of neglected land, so that from the sea- 
 level u|) to a height of 3,000 feet, thousands of acres are covered with
 
 346 TlVn HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON. 
 
 impenetrable lliickets of this too luxuriant colonist. Naturally all 
 cultivators consider it an intoUral)Ie nuisance, and rue the day of its 
 introduction to Ceylon ; but nevertheless the lantana has its own 
 useful nn'ssion to perform, in securing for the land both shade and 
 moisture, while by the ceaseless decay of its rich foliage it gives new 
 life to the worn-out soil, preparing it afresh for the service of 
 ungrateful humanity. 
 
 Since Government has awakened to the necessity of guarding the 
 remaining forests, this chena-cultivation is imder control of surveyors, 
 and the sanction of the Government Agent is required before a new 
 tract can be thus treated ; so the villagers are gradually learning to 
 grow their vegetables on more economic principles. 
 
 Leaving the mountainous region, we travelled north-east across 
 that known as the Park Country, on which we had looked down from 
 the high grounds— a great tract partly of forest, partly of open grass 
 country and of swampy rice-lands, but all intersected by very 
 picturesque hill ranges. 
 
 Until very recently, all this district abounded with game of all 
 sorts, which, however, has been so ruthlessly slaughtered, that it is 
 now said to be, practically speaking, exterminated. There are still 
 large herds of spotted deer and a good many of the Sambur deer — 
 here called elk — but very few compared with even ten years ago. A 
 close season has been appointed for the preservation of all manner of 
 deer and other useful and beautiful animals, but this ordinance is 
 apparently respected only by Europeans, and not invariably by them. 
 As to the natives, they harry the poor wild tribes day and night, in 
 season and out of season, large parties with guns, dogs, and nets lying 
 in wait at the water-holes and tanks where they must come to drink, 
 so that the poor beasts have no chance. 
 
 A Ceylon paper for July i8gi quotes advertisements showing 
 that ' 27,453 Ceylon elk hides ' had been offered for sale in London 
 since January, and, while discrediting the figures, comments on the 
 ruthless wholesale slaughter which is undoubtedly carried on all the 
 year round. It seems probable that here, as in the United States, the 
 wild creatures are destined to be exterminated, and eventually re- 
 placed by more prosaic herds of domesticated animals — cattle, sheep, 
 and horses — who would doubtless thrive in this grassy and well-tim- 
 l)ered region, all of which is apparently admirably adapted for pastoral 
 purposes. 
 
 A minor drawback to these grassy plains in dry weather are the
 
 r.ADULLA AND TIAPUTAT.E 347 
 
 innumerable ' ticks' which swarm in some places. 'I'hesc scarcely 
 visible black atoms get on to one's clothes, and continue their travels 
 till they succeed in burying their heads in one's skin, the sensation 
 of the victim being that of being pricked with a red-hot needle. Any 
 attempt to pluck them out only produces irritation, so it is best to 
 leave these unwelcome guests in peace till you can touch them with 
 a droj) of oil, when they relax their hold. (The natives always have 
 cocoa-nut oil at hand to anoint their hair, and oh ! the aroma 
 thereof) There is a larger variety of this pest called the buffalo, but 
 its bite is not nearly so painful as that of its minute cousin. One 
 comfort of rainy weather is that these creatures then disappear. 
 
 One very annoying family are the innumerable minute ' eye-flics,' 
 which take pleasure in dancing as close as possible to one's eyes, 
 as if they really found pleasure in beholding themselves mirrored 
 therein. 
 
 It must be confessed that after a while the daily routine of march- 
 ing is apt to become somewhat tedious, almost every morning having 
 to be up soon after 5 a.m. packing, swallowing a hurried breakfast, 
 and then starting on a march which rarely exceeds twelve or fourteen 
 miles, but which is necessarily so slow that it is probably past ten 
 before you reach your destination, by which time the sun is pouring 
 down in scorching heat, and you are thankful indeed for the 
 shadow of the palm-leaf hut, or any other rough and ready rest- 
 house. 
 
 Half the coolies always march at night, starting as soon as you 
 have dined, and the cook and table-servant can get the cooking pots 
 and dishes packed ; so that you find your real breakfast ready on 
 arriving, and right welcome it is. By the time you have fed and 
 washed, you are so tired that you generally are thankful for an hour's 
 sleep, that you may be fresh for the afternoon's work or ramble, as 
 the case may be. 
 
 Day by day, riding or driving, we moved from point to point. 
 One pretty drive lay through most charming jungle, literally swarming 
 with butterflies. We had to cross the Maha-Oya just at its junction 
 with the Dambera-Oya. A fine wide river-bed overshadowed by 
 large trees suggested what this stream must be when swollen by heavy 
 rains in the mountains, but now all was drought, and there was not 
 even a trickle of water. We walked across the sandy channel, while 
 the horses dragged the empty carriage, and a well-trained elephant, 
 who was assisting in building a bridge for the use of future travellers.
 
 348 TWO HAl'Py YEARS IN CFA'LON 
 
 lent Ill's great strcngtli to shove tlie baggage-carts while the patient 
 bullocks pulled them across. 
 
 I was struck here, as in many another district in the hot plains, 
 with two peculiar characteristics of several of the principal trees 
 C)nr is the thinness of their bark, as though Abither Nature knew 
 they would only require summer coats ; the other is the extraordinary 
 size and height of their massive roots, which are thrown out on every 
 side like buttresses, evidently to enable the tree to resist the rushing 
 of floods. These buttresses are so high that full-grown men could 
 stand in one compartment unseen by their neighbours in the next 
 division. 
 
 We had sle[)t the two previous nights in miserable rest-houses, so 
 it was delightful to find this night's quarters at Pulawella in a clean 
 new house, cosily placed in a patch of quiet jungle with peaceful 
 meadows on either side. 
 
 On the following day we found equally pleasant quarters at Rugam, 
 near the Rugam tank, to which we were escorted by a fine old village 
 headman, who remembered my brother vividly, as did also all the 
 villagers, by whom, said the old chief, he was immensely loved. They 
 said he often came here at night for sport in the days when the long- 
 neglected lake lay undisturbed in the silent forest and game of all 
 sorts abounded. 
 
 At the time of our visit the tank was being restored, so we saw 
 no large animals, only a goodly family of crocodiles, and many radiant 
 birds — oriole, barbet, kingfisher, &c. The officer in charge of the 
 works was rejoiced to see white faces, the first he had seen for two 
 months. He bade a fisher cast his net in the now clear waters, and 
 each cast enclosed a multitude of fishes, which we carried back for 
 the use of the whole party. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 SOME PAGES FROM A DROTHER'S DIARY 
 
 During his eighteen years' residence in Ceylon, until his death, 
 October 6, 1865, John Randolph Gordon Cumming kept regular 
 diaries full of most interesting notes on natural history and sport, as 
 were also his numerous letters to the old home. By some lamentable
 
 SOME PAGES FROM A BROTHER'S DIARY 349 
 
 accident, the wliolc of these have been lost or destroyed, with the 
 exception of a few pages of an early journal and half-a-dozen letters 
 — by no means the most interesting, being chiefly on business. 
 Nevertheless, as no word from his pen has ever been published, I 
 here quote a few passages from these, to show how worthily he filled 
 his place as one of the race of Nimrods— the brothers who were all 
 born sj)ortsmen. 
 
 'July ()//i, \?>j^?>.—Baflica/oa. — On the 4th inst. I slcjjt at Terri- 
 coil, where there is a large temple. On the following morning I met 
 five Moormen, one of whom told me that a leopard had entered their 
 village the night before, and had so alarmed his bullocks, which were 
 confined in a kraal close to his house, that they broke loose and ran 
 away in all directions. Next morning he found one of the finest 
 killed and partly devoured in the centre of a large plain across which 
 I would have to pass. I rode on, and found his words verified. On 
 examining the ground, 1 saw that there had evidently been a desperate 
 struggle, the chetah ' having twice thrown the bullock ere he killed 
 him. 
 
 ' My first consideration was how best to conceal myself for a 
 shot at the spoiler, in case he should return to feast on his prey. 
 This was no easy matter, on account of the nature of the ground. 
 Fortunately there was one small bush within thirty yards of the spot ; 
 this I enlarged with the help of some fresh branches from the neigh- 
 bouring jungle, forming a very natural-looking crescent, which would 
 effectually conceal several men when once fairly settled down in it. 
 
 ' I then sent for some villagers to drag the bullock within range of 
 my ambuscade. The moon being in her first quarter and very hazy, 
 I was obliged to take a very near shot, and, to the horror of the 
 Moormen, made them place it within nine yards of the bush, exactly 
 between me and the nearest point of the jungle. 
 
 ' A few minutes before sunset I took my seat, in company with 
 three other men who were anxious to see the sport. We expected 
 that, according to custom, the chetah would make his a{)pearance 
 immediately after dark, and we were not disappointed. Half-an- 
 hour after we were fairly settled, the sudden retreat of a number of 
 wild hogs and jackals warned us of his ai)proach, and a few minutes 
 after I could just discern him through the darkness, crawling up 
 stealthily with his belly to the earth, like an enormous cat. 
 
 Leopards in Ceylon are habitually miscalled ' chetah.' See p. 167.
 
 350 TJFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 ' I'hc light was so bad that 1 did not dare to fire. After hcking 
 ihc llesh two or three times, he retreated out of sight in thedarkness ; 
 presently he returned, but unfortunately got the wind of us, and 
 after growling most savagely for ten minutes, vanished for the night 
 — so at least I was told by one of the men, an old hand, who added 
 that if he did return, he would examine our hiding-place carefully. 
 So there was nothing for it but to depart in disgust. Returning to 
 the spot the following morning, I found that the chctah had returned, 
 and polished off the best part of the carcase, not, however, before 
 making a careful survey of the bush, as the tracks proved. 
 
 ' As there was still a chance of his coming back the following 
 night, I determined to take it and fire on him at any risk, whether 
 the light were good or bad. I had, however, a long day before me, 
 and spent it examining different holes and dens of bears and chetahs 
 in the forest, without success, although several of them bore marks 
 of very recent visits from both parties. Came on a small herd of 
 elephants, and shot two, right and left. 
 
 ' At sunset I again retreated to my hiding-place in company with 
 my former attendants, my hunter and two Moormen. On our 
 arrival at the ground, we found it already occupied by upwards of 
 thirty pariah or village dogs, and as they set us completely at defiance, 
 we allowed them to feast at their leisure. They went on very quietly 
 for some time, till a herd of wild hog, including three large boars, 
 came forward, determined to dispute the field with them. A most 
 exciting scene followed, the dogs ranged on one side of the carcase 
 and the pigs on the other, neither party daring to put a nose on the 
 meat. Every now and then a boar made a rush forward, only to be 
 driven back in double-quick time by the dogs. 
 
 ' Suddenly the scene changed ; the dogs beating a hasty retreat 
 and the pigs moving off to a respectful distance, again warned me of 
 the approach of my game. A few minutes afterwards I discovered 
 him crawling up in the darkness. The moon was cloudy, but I had 
 determined to fire upon him at any risk ; so the moment his nose 
 touched the carcase, I did so. The report was followed by most 
 fearful roars and growling, but the smoke coming back in my face 
 prevented me from seeing the actual result. On turning round to 
 spring out of the bush to take a second shot, I found that my 
 attendants had fled, taking with them my spare gun and pistol ! 
 
 ' The smoke having dispersed, I saw that the chetah was gone, 
 but my followers coming up a few minutes afterwards, consoled me
 
 SOME PAGES FROM A BROTHER'S DIARY 351 
 
 by telling me that he was mortal])' wounded, otherwise he woidd have 
 sprung forward, and that we would find him the following morning 
 wthin a short distance of the place. This proved to be the case. 
 Returning at dawn, we found him stiff and cold within two hundred 
 yards of the spot. He turned out to be a full-grown male ; the ball, 
 entering the neck a little behind the ear, had passed through the 
 whole length of the body. 
 
 ' Returning home, I found that a bullock had been killed by two 
 chetahs the night before. I tracked and shot one of them, a fine 
 male.' 
 
 '■ October loth^ 1848.^ Crossed the lake to Nathany. Proceeded 
 to Narvalgennie, and went out bear-shooting with hunting-buffaloes. 
 Shot one bear mortally, but did not bag him owing to the darkness. 
 I found him sitting at the side of a small tank in the middle of an 
 old chena farm ; we immediately tacked up towards him with the 
 buffliloes, but owing to the nature of the ground we could not get 
 within thirty yards, so at that distance we lay down to watch his 
 actions. 
 
 'The bear, apparently wondering what we were about, approached 
 to within twenty yards of us, and then sat down. The buffaloes 
 began to snort and toss up their heads. I took a hasty shot at his 
 head and missed, the light being bad. As he continued to advance 
 sideways, I fired my second barrel, aiming behind his shoulder. 
 The ball told well, as he rolled heels over head, roaring and groaning. 
 (Poor brute !) 
 
 ' Before a second gun could be put into my hands, he had dis- 
 appeared in the darkness, and I saw him no more. On the bear's 
 giving vent to his feelings, the men lost all restraint over the 
 buffaloes ; they tore up to the spot, apparently bent upon annihilat- 
 ing the unfortunate brute, and were as much disgusted at his escape 
 as I was myself.' 
 
 '■October i4t/i, 1848. — Charvelacaddi, near Batticaloa. --Two 
 nights ago, just before sunset, a leopard knocked over a IjufQilo 
 beside the jungle, in an old chena close to the village above named. 
 The herd, on hearing the noise made by their unfortunate companion, 
 dashed up to the spot in a body, doubtless hoping to polish off 
 the cat by goring him with their horns. He finding himself hard 
 pressed, first sprang up into a tree, but as the buffaloes continued to
 
 352 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 liuU it and [)1oul;1i up the ground around il, lie made a bound over 
 Uicir heads and dashed into ihc jungle. 
 
 'The chelali had broken the neck of the buffalo, but apparently 
 had not tasted blood, for he did not return that night to his feast. 
 Next evening, however, passing that way on his rounds, he carried 
 the carcase into the thick jungle and devoured abtnit one-half. 1 lay 
 in wail for him next day, but he did not return. The meat was 
 evidently too gamey for his taste, as, instead of eating it limb by limb, 
 according to custom, he had only selected the daintiest bits. This, 
 I find, is a sure sign that a leopard will not return to his ([uarry.' 
 
 '■ November 2^th, 1848.— A farmer in this neighl)ourhood sent a 
 herd of goats to feed on a small i)eninsula. A chetah getting wind 
 of them, swam over from the mainland, and laid himself up for the 
 day in a small patch of jungle. The herdsman having discovered 
 him, reported the matter to his master, who immediately collected a 
 party with guns and spears in order to dislodge the enemy. They 
 hastened to the spot, taking the herdsman as their guide. 
 
 'The poor fellow, being more bold than prudent, went \x\) to the 
 chetah's place of ambush, and while he was in the act of [lointing 
 out the direction of its head, the brute si)rang u{ion his shoulder, 
 sending him heels over head into the shallow water. The man 
 regained his legs, and staggered forward a few paces, the chetah still 
 holding on, and then both rolled over into the deep water. 
 
 'The cat not relishing the cold bath, let go his hold and bolted 
 back into the jungle. The other men, on going up to their companion, 
 found his back much cut and torn, and in their anxiety to convey 
 him home and have his wounds dressed, they forgot all about the 
 leopard, who took advantage of their absence to leave the peninsula. 
 ' That same evening a chetah having killed a bullock at Kalarr, 
 two men tied a seat in a tree and lay in wait to shoot him. On the 
 enemy making his appearance a little after nightfall, they fired at 
 him, whereupon he bolted into the jungle. The following morning, 
 on examining the place, they found drops of blood, and followed up 
 the trail, which led them into the middle of a thick rattan jungle. 
 AVhile thev were busily engaged in examining the ground, the chetah 
 sprang ui)on one man, and with one stroke of his paw knocked out 
 his left eye, at the same time taking off one half of his nose. He 
 then disappeared. 
 
 ' This morning the coolies killed a rock-snake fifteen feet long.
 
 SOME PAGES FROM A BROTHER'S DIARY 353 
 
 His budy was all scarred by the protrusion of the horns and bones of 
 different animals which the reptile had swallowed in the course of his 
 lifetime. These snakes are rarely seen by day, but come out at 
 night in search of prey, and seize any animal they can, even a deer. 
 Coiling round him, they crush him, lick him into a shape convenient 
 for swallowing whole, and eventually disgorge his bones.' 
 
 ^ JJece/iiber \oth. — Rather a curious thing happened the other 
 day. A leopard struck down a young buffalo,' and while dragging it 
 off to thick jungle was attacked by the mother. The poor beast, in 
 her zeal to defend her calf, missed the cat and stuck her horns several 
 limes through her own calf, the leopard meanwhile disappearing into 
 the jungle, doubtless with the intention of returning to feast at leisure 
 after dark. 
 
 'Another chetah having struck down a buffalo, the herd, hearing 
 the noise, dashed up to the spot. The cat finding himself hard 
 pressed, bolted up a tree. Some labourers who were at work in a 
 neighbouring paddy-field saw the commotion among the cattle and 
 ran to the spot. As soon as the chetah found their eyes fixed upon 
 him, he bounded over their heads and bolted into the thicket.' 
 
 '■December i^t/i, 1848. — I went last week to Karativoe, and the 
 headman of Pantroup, a neighbouring village, sent me word that a 
 chetah had killed a buffalo there the previous night. I ordered my 
 horse and rode off post-haste, but did not reach the spot till an hour 
 l)efore sunset. I found the carcase, which was that of an old bull, 
 half-way between the village and the sea. 
 
 ' The soil being light and sandy, and rain having fallen on the 
 previous night, I had a famous opportunity of observing the manner 
 in which the leopard had waylaid and secured his prey. So distinct 
 indeed were the tracks, that I could almost fancy I saw- the monster 
 taking the spring. They had met on a jungle path ; the buffalo, of 
 course unconscious of danger, had approached at a steady pace, 
 stopping occasionally to crop the herbage. The chetah, on the other 
 hand, having winded his game from a distance, had crawled along, 
 
 ' The Ceylon buH'alo is a large, clunisily-built, very strong animal, with black, 
 shining, leathery skin, and seareely any hair. It carries its head horizontally, nose 
 forward, so that its large, ribbed, heavy horns bend backwards, resting on the shoulders, 
 and it makes good use of them both for defence and to attack man or beast, so it is 
 by no means an enemy to be despised by man or leopard. 
 
 A .\
 
 354 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 ventre-a-fem, trying the stunted bushes on either side of the path, 
 till at length he got himself comfortably lodged in the middle of a 
 low thick bush commanding an angle of the path. 
 
 ' Thence he had sprung, and I could actually see the marks of 
 his tail lashing the sand preparatory to so doing. The buffalo on 
 receiving the shock had staggered forward a few paces and then 
 fallen heavily to the ground. He was unable to regain his feet, and 
 the struggle had evidently been a desperate one, the ground being 
 literally ploughed up and branches of a large size broken. 
 
 'The chetah having only sucked the blood of his victim, I knew 
 from former experience that he would return early in the night to 
 make a meal, and as the day was so far advanced, I had little time 
 to form plans or take precautions in self-defence, and the jungle was 
 so low that I could only fire at him from the ground. Hastily 
 shaping out a seat in, the middle of a bush within twelve yards of 
 the carcase, I made a screen all round with live branches, which 
 would effectually conceal me and at the same time look quite natural 
 to the eye. I then loaded my guns, and ensconced myself with my 
 attendant in the bush. 
 
 ' Just as the sun was setting, we heard a distant snorting like that 
 of a horse, only rougher. The sound approached nearer and nearer, 
 and a minute afterwards the head and shoulders of the magnificent 
 brute appeared through an opening in the jungle, within thirty yards 
 of us. Although I had judged from his track and the strength of the 
 buffalo he had laid low that he was one of unusual size, I was quite 
 unprepared for such a grand sight ; in truth, he reminded me of a 
 diminutive prize-ox at a cattle-show — such a breadth of chest and 
 shoulder. 
 
 ' I took aim several times, but judging from the immense size of 
 his limbs and muscles how little effect a ball could have unless it 
 struck a vital part, I reserved my fire for a more convenient season. 
 He continued sitting in sight, snorting for more than five minutes, 
 and then turned round, and with a growl disappeared in the jungle. 
 
 ' The sun had by this time gone down, and we lay for fully two 
 hours without either hearing or seeing anything of the enemy. We 
 watched the rise of the lovely full moon and the proceedings of a 
 pack of jackals which had been prowling about when we first came 
 to the ground. These became emboldened by the long absence of 
 the chetah, and began to approach the carcase, keeping a good look- 
 out, however, in the direction from which they expected he would
 
 SOME PAGES FROM A BROTHER'S DIARY 355 
 
 come. Every now and then one of ihem would summon up jjluck 
 to give a tug at the buffalo, letting go his hold again as quickly as if 
 it were hot iron, and then running off to a distance, would sit down 
 nervously. 
 
 'At length we heard distant growling, which, of course, put us on 
 the alert. As for the jackals, they disa])peared in a twinkling. The 
 growling grew louder and louder, till at length the very air seemed 
 to shake, and presently the head and shoulders reappeared at the 
 same place as before. Then the beautiful beast sat in silence for 
 more than half an hour in all the dignity of leisure, as if wishing to 
 make sure that the coast was clear. Then, apparently suspecting 
 danger, though he could not possibly have winded us, he rose and 
 recommenced growling as if in defiance. After standing thus for 
 several minutes, he turned round and disappeared. 
 
 ' We listened to his growling till at length the sound was fairly lost 
 in the distance. The mosquitos had feasted upon me so long and 
 earnestly that I had grown callous to their attentions, and I was so 
 weary that I was just dropping off to sleep, when my attendant 
 silently touched my shoulder. Listening intently, I again heard the 
 sweet melody, although at a great distance and in an opposite direc- 
 tion from that in which we had last heard it. 
 
 'This time he appeared to have made up his mind, as immediately 
 on arriving at the opening he walked up to within a few paces of the 
 carcase and sat down. All on a sudden it apparently occurred to 
 him that it would be as well to reconnoitre the neighbourhood once 
 more before commencing supper, for he rose and walked forward a 
 few paces in the direction of our hiding-place. 
 
 ' I saw that there was no time to be lost, so, quickly screwing up 
 my nerves for a steady shot, I allowed him to advance within nine 
 yards or so. As good luck would have it, he swerved a little to the 
 right, thus affording me the opportunity of giving him a very favourite 
 ball. I fired. With one terrific roar he bounded into the jungle to 
 the right of us. 
 
 ' His voice had such an effect on my attendant that he made a 
 desperate attempt to bolt past me out of the bush. I, however, seized 
 him by the wrist and held him fast, apparently much to his horror 
 and disgust. I find that remaining quiet at such a moment is of the 
 utmost importance, as in the event of the cat discovering his enemy, 
 he will spring upon him to a certainty. 
 
 ' After remaining quiet for ten minutes listening, so as to be sure 
 
 A A 2
 
 356 TJFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 that he was cither dead or had crawled away into the jungle, we got 
 out and walked home. At daybreak we returned in company with 
 a numerous retinue, and were at no loss to find the trail, as, inde- 
 pendent of the tracks upon the light soil, blood-stains were not 
 wanting. These continued for about thirty yards and then ceased. 
 That was easily accounted for, as he had then evidently sat down 
 and licked his wounds. 
 
 'After following the trail a little further, we lost it in thick jungle. 
 There the natives drew back, and no offer could tempt them to 
 proceed. I made a long and vain search single-handed, but was 
 obliged to give it up for the moment as a bad job. Feeling certain, 
 however, from various circumstances, that he could not have crawled 
 far, I offered a reward of two rupees to any one who would bring me 
 his head. This step had the desired effect, as, on the third morning 
 after, a man came to my bungalow and demanded payment, as he 
 had found the cat. 
 
 ' I rode off with him to the spot, being anxious to see the noble 
 l)rute, and also how the ball had taken effect. To my surprise, he 
 had hardly gone 250 yards from the scene of action, and was lying in 
 an old chena by the side of a dense jungle. The poor animal had 
 evidently survived the shot some time, as he lay in a crouching 
 attitude, as if preparatory to making a spring. He was a full-grown 
 male, and measured upwards of eight feet seven inches from nose to 
 tail. The ball had entered the left shoulder and passed out below 
 the ribs on the left side. 
 
 'The headman of the village told me that 200/. would not cover 
 the damage this leopard had done by the slaughter of cattle in that 
 and the neighbouring villages.' 
 
 Here ends the only fragment I possess of my brother's diary. 
 From a small packet of letters I give the following extracts : — 
 
 \JuIy 2']th, 1852. — Kandy. — I came up to the Kandyan country 
 ten days ago upon business. It is a great relief to have one's nerves 
 braced up after the fearful heat of the low country. I have had a few 
 day's elk-huniing with a friend, and enjoyed myself very much. It 
 is one of the noblest and at the same time the hardest sport I know. 
 ^Ve run down the deer with fox-hounds, which gives us a run on foot 
 of eight or ten miles over mountains and rocks, through rugged glens 
 and along precipices. Deer-stalking in Scotland is comparatively 
 tame work.'
 
 SOME PAGES EROM A BROTHER'S DIARY 357 
 
 ' 1857. — Bniticaloa. — Christmas alone in the backwoods is not a 
 cheerful season, so I was glad to seek a little excitement in tlie 
 jungle. Had I chosen to stick to elephants, I could easily have 
 made a large bag (of their tails), but I prefer variety, and to get that, 
 one has to go to work quietly. As it was, I killed four elephants, 
 eight buffaloes, two elk, six leopards, and a considerable number of 
 deer and pigs ; of these I only kill what I require for feeding my 
 men. 
 
 ' While out, two of my friends from Kandy joined mc. They stuck 
 to elephants, and killed four, one of which was a small tusker. Shipton 
 nearly came to grief ; he was knocked over by an elei^hant, which 
 afterwards walked over his body, but got confused, and fortunately 
 left him. Two months ago, a native, under almost similar circum- 
 stances, was taken up by the elephant in his trunk, and deliberately 
 pounded to death between the brute's knees. 
 
 ' I was very sorry to hear of poor Bill being hugged by a bear and 
 getting his wrist chawed up ; ' but it is well it was not worse, as these 
 horrid creatures invariably try to get at your face. In my night ex- 
 cursions, generally in the early morning, when they are on the prowl 
 in search of prey, I have had some extraordinary escapes, especially 
 on one occasion, when, just as the brute flew at me open-mouthed, I 
 sent a ball down its throat. The Ceylon bears are enormously strong 
 and very savage, often attacking men without provocation. Some- 
 times they drop on natives from trees and lacerate them frightfully. 
 
 ' They are omnivorous, eating fruit, roots, and honey, supplemented 
 by ants, which give a formic acid relish, but they are always ready 
 for raw meat if they can get it. 
 
 ' They are very jealous of human poachers on their preserves of 
 wild honey, and often attack natives while honey-hunting in the 
 forests. 
 
 ' Several accidents happened while I was out last. One poor 
 fellow, whom I saw on my way out, was killed before my return by a 
 bear, which literally tore him to pieces, and yet the poor wretch lived 
 for ten days afterwards. He was in a fearful condition : his right eye 
 was gouged out, and the side-bone of the face torn away — features 
 could scarcely be distinguished ; his arms and legs were also frightfully 
 mangled. 
 
 'Another man had his stomach torn out by a buffalo, and died 
 
 • ' Sec ' Wild Mi'ii and Wild Rrast^.' liy Coloiifl William (Jordon Cnniming. 
 Published by David Douglas, ICdinburgh.
 
 358 TJyn II ATP Y YEARS IX CF.YI.OX 
 
 immediately. Another was killed by a crocodile, which caught him 
 while fishing in a tank. He was rescued, but died in the course of 
 the night. During the same time I heard of four deaths from snake- 
 bite. So, you see, a sportsman in this country has to keep a good 
 look-out ; but I find endless delight in watching beasts, birds, 
 reptiles, and nature in general. 
 
 ' It was the season for birds' nests, and my men feasted freely on 
 the eggs of pea-fowl and many sorts of water-fowl. I myself robbed 
 a lot of pelicans' nests, just for the fun of the thing, but the eggs 
 were rather strong for my taste. It is so absurd of these large birds 
 to l)uild their nests in trees, and their nests are small in proportion 
 to the size of the bird. 
 
 'While passing through a low, swampy jungle I came on a croco- 
 dile's mound, and the proprietrix, a very large one, was lying quietly 
 on guard. I gave her an elephant ball, which blew her brains away, 
 and she never moved a muscle. With a good deal of trouble, we 
 dug out the eggs from the centre of the mound, and then smashed 
 them. There were fifty-eight in all. A crocodile lays from fifty to 
 a hundred eggs, very much resembling those of a common goose. 
 Fancy all these horrors coming to years of discretion ! 
 
 'Another day I passed two very fine specimens of rock-snake, 
 from fifteen to eighteen feet long. I could easily have secured them, 
 but left them undisturbed. 
 
 ' I kill a considerable number of crocodiles by the aid of a hook 
 baited with raw meat and attached to a strong rope made of a great 
 number of small cords so loosely twisted as to get between the teeth 
 of the brute, who is thus unable to bite them. A wooden float 
 attached to the line indicates the whereabouts of the too-confiding 
 crocodile who has swallowed the bait. I draw the float gently ashore, 
 and with it the head of the poor reptile, when a well-directed shot 
 aimed at the back of the neck breaks the spine and secures an easy 
 victim.' 
 
 ''January 1863. — Batticaloa. — This is our monsoon or wet season. 
 Fancy that for nineteen days we have had no iappal — that is, post — 
 from Colombo on account of the low country being flooded, and at 
 the same time our port is closed, so we are effectually cut off from 
 communication with the world. Speaking of post, delightful as it is 
 to receive letters from home, you really must all remember to have 
 your letters weighed, as I have sometimes had to pay as much as
 
 SOME PAGES EROM A BROTlIEirs DTARY 359 
 
 six shillings for a single letter, and that's no joke in these hard 
 times.' 
 
 ^ April 1863. — The last two months have been, as usual, most 
 oppressive, owing to the reflection of the sun and drying up of the 
 waters after the monsoon. However, vegetation is at its fullest, and 
 all nature rejoices. Birds of all sorts are busy building and rearing 
 their young. It is commonly said that tropical songsters are inferior 
 to those of Europe. I find, on the contrary, that some of the birds 
 here are the most powerful and melodious I have ever heard. But 
 as regards human beings, the only time when a white man can have 
 any enjoyment of life, is the first hour of the morning and the last 
 at night, the glare and heat of the intervening hours being insuffer- 
 able.' 
 
 ''July 1863. — I often wonder how you would relish a week of such 
 weather as we have at present. During May, June, and July our hot 
 winds prevail, the blasts of which are just such as you might imagine 
 coming from the lower regions. At this moment it is blowing in 
 full force, apparently, as one would think, carrying desolation and 
 destruction along with it. I can tell you that a man leading an 
 almost solitary life in such a sultry and exhausting climate has to 
 " make an effort " to keep body and soul together. I occasionally go 
 out shooting, but it is more for the sake of exercise and excitement 
 than real pleasure, such is the effect of an unnatural temperature upon 
 the constitution. 
 
 'I went out about a fortnight ago and killed various troublesome 
 beasts, amongst others five very large elephants, all with single shots. 
 I also bagged a very large crocodile with baited hook and line. 
 
 ' Some people seem to imagine that the life of a cocoa-nut planter 
 must be a very easy one. That certainly is not the case if you happen 
 to be settled in a part of the country where wild animals abound, 
 and where, for want of sufficient timber to make fences, you are 
 obliged to be constantly on the alert to protect your property. 
 
 'I generally rise at 4.30 a.m. and take a saunter in the jungle, 
 watching the habits of any animals or birds I may see. Returning to 
 coffee, I start my men at 6 a.m. to their various duties. Meanwhile 
 a watcher has gone all round the estates, and reports any damage 
 done by buffaloes, wild-hog, or porcupines. When he has anything 
 to report I go to inspect, and if buffaloes have broken in we summon
 
 36o Tiro HAPPY YEARS TN CEYLON 
 
 a village headman, who values the damage done and fines the owners 
 accordingly. Sometimes these buffaloes are savage and knock the 
 men down right and left. AV'hen the same animals return too often 
 we shoot them. 
 
 'Wild-hog are the worst enemies we have to contend with. 
 Those which enter the estates are generally the large single boars, and 
 as they are ferocious to a degree, especially when surrounded, we run 
 considerable risk in effecting their destruction. You can fancy what 
 their strength must be when one rip is sufficient to cut open a horse 
 or a bullock. 
 
 ' I have had so many dogs cut to pieces that I have given up 
 keeping them, and in general I now shoot as many boars as I can. 
 Some, however, are such cunning old hands that they only come 
 on dark nights, and go away again before morning. For these we 
 prepare pitfalls filled with sharp stakes. This causes a very horrible 
 death. 
 
 'A curious thing happened lately. A large boar had been giving 
 much trouble. Two pitfalls were prepared at low parts of the fence 
 where he was in the habit of jumping over. A porcupine fell into 
 one and got staked, but he slipped in so quietly as not to disarrange 
 the l)ranches and grass placed over the top. In the course of the 
 night the boar fell into the other trap, and although badly staked he 
 managed to get out ; but while seeking for a hole in the fence by 
 which to get out he fell into the other pit on to the porcupine, and 
 must have attacked it furiously, for his mouth and nose were all 
 transfixed with quills. After all, he managed to get out of the pit, 
 and in the morning we found him at some distance lying in a bush, 
 too weak to charge. The poor creature's tongue and throat were 
 literally riddled with quills. 
 
 ' It was very horrible, and I much prefer shooting them when it 
 is possible. I lately shot five large ones in one morning. The 
 natives are always glad to get pig's flesh, though Europeans generally 
 object to it, as the wild pigs are filthy feeders, and feast on putrid 
 carrion quite as readily as on young cocoa-palms (so that their 
 trespassing on the latter is inexcusable). They even gobble up the 
 enormous earth-worms, which are as large as small snakes. 
 
 ' As a matter of sport, pig-hunting in this island is a very different 
 thing from Indian pig-sticking, which is all done on horseback by 
 men carrying spears. Here the sportsmen follow on foot, and the 
 only weapon in use is a long, sharp hunting-knife. Young boars
 
 SOME PAGES FROM A BROTHER'S DIARY -/u 
 
 and sows go about in large herds of perhaps a couple of hundred, 
 but the old patriarchs prefer wandering about independently. ' 
 
 ' Porcupines also do serious damage on a cocoa-palm plantation, 
 us they have a special weakness for the heart of young palms ; and 
 there is no keeping them out, as they gnaw their way through fences 
 or burrow under walls in the most determined manner. They can 
 be tamed, but are troublesome and mischievous pets. 
 
 'At II A.M. I return to breakfast, and the men do likewise, 
 resuming work at i. If possible I remain indoors till 3 p.m., when I 
 go out again till sunset at about 6.30. 
 
 ' Then, unless there is any night shooting to be done, I am glad 
 to get to bed early, and so take refuge inside the nets to escape the 
 mosquitos and other playful insects. At the present moment I can 
 hardly see my paper for eye-flies.' 
 
 I think there are few sportsmen who will not share my regret that 
 these meagre notes are all that remain to record the experience and 
 observation of one who landed in the Isle while it was still a true 
 paradise for sportsmen — when the multitude of wild animals was as 
 described by Sir James Emerson Tennant — when there were no 
 game-laws, no need of licences, only a grateful people, not, like the 
 villagers of to-day, provided with rifles, powder, and shot, but ready 
 to bless the white man, who freed them from the incursions of 
 dangerous foes and provided them with abundant food, in the form 
 of wild pigs and sundry kinds of deer. For his own camp fare there 
 was a most appetising variety of birds, jungle and pea fowl, red-legged 
 l^artridges, plover, and pigeons, quails, parroquets, fine fat wild-ducks, 
 snipe, cranes— in short, ample materials for savoury stews and roasts; 
 and of these also we occasionally received amusing notices, as, for 
 instance, when one day he had shot a lovely rose-tinted marabout 
 stork that he might send me its feathers, and its body had furnished 
 an excellent stew. After dinner his servant remarked that fish must 
 surely be very scarce this season. On his asking ' Why ? ' the rei)ly 
 came, ' Because in cleaning that bird for niastcr's dinner I lound a 
 large rat inside of it ! ' Now, even in the jungle, that was not a very 
 pleasant suggestion ! 
 
 Besides all the animals that can be classed as game, that quiet 
 observer of nature found a never-failing delight in studying the 
 habits of all manner of creatures which a mere hunter would i)ass 
 unnoticed, or probably destroy as vermin. My brother's delight lay
 
 362 TIV(J HAPPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 in taming many such, and his rougli-and-rcady bungalow was not 
 only adorned with all manner of trophies of the chase, but also was 
 the home of a most singular variety of pets of all sorts — his com- 
 panions in many a lonely hour. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 RATTICALOA 
 
 Musical shell-fish— Shooting fish by torchlight— Baptism of villagers at Navatkuda — 
 Tamil caste persecution — Honorific umbrellas — Life on a cocoa-palm estate — Visit 
 to the Veddahs — Dread of the evil eye — Singhalese castes— Dhobies prepare huts 
 for travellers— Bad water causes divers diseases — PoUanarua. 
 
 From Rugam we drove to Batticaloa ; part of the distance was to 
 have been accomplished in a borrowed carriage, but as the horse 
 totally refused to move, and finally lay down in the middle of the 
 road, we had to wait several hours under the palm-trees till another 
 could be procured. These little difficulties are of such frequent 
 recurrence whenever it is necessary to hire horses, and the many 
 unpleasant methods to which the horse-keepers resort to persuade 
 obstinate, or perhaps half-starved, animals to proceed have been so 
 often described, that it is needless to refer to them, and, personally, 
 my own experience was generally confined to the well-cared-for and 
 well-trained horses of friends. 
 
 The country towards Batticaloa is a dead-level plain, which 
 (thanks to the restoration of the tanks, and of the ancient system of 
 irrigation) has been transformed from an unhealthy marsh, overgrown 
 with low jungle, to a vast expanse of luxuriant rice. 
 
 Sir Henry Ward (who first suggested the necessity of a forest 
 protection) was also the first to attempt any restoration of the old 
 irrigation works in the Eastern and Southern Provinces. In the 
 Batticaloa district the repair of the great tanks at Irakkamam and 
 Amparai restored prosperity to all the country round, converting a 
 district where malarious swamps alternated with arid wastes into a 
 smiling expanse of fertile land. Now the eye may rest on a plain of 
 about 20,000 acres of lovely green rice, in addition to all other 
 varieties of cultivation, and a well-fed, prosperous, healthy popula- 
 tion replaces the half- starved and diseased villagers of fifty years ago. 
 
 Parallel with the coast for about thirty miles lies one of those
 
 r, ATTICA I.OA 363 
 
 strange fresh-water lagoons or 'gohbs' similar to those on which we 
 sailed up the western shores of Ceylon/ formed by the confluence of 
 some of the many rivers, which, meandering through this vast verdant 
 plain, 200 miles in length by about twenty in width, have changed 
 their course in many a flood, and yet continue to supply their former 
 channels, thus forming a natural network of navigable canals — quiet 
 waterways fringed with dense thickets of evergreen mangroves whose 
 curiously arched and wide-spreading roots grow right into the water, 
 the home of innumerable crabs and shell-fish, and also swarming with 
 crocodiles. Lovely blue kingfishers and snowy or rose-coloured 
 cranes, pelicans, and other aquatic birds here find quiet covert 
 whence they can fish unmolested. 
 
 The united waters are prevented from entering the sea (except 
 when in flood) by a harbour-bar of their own creating, which effectu- 
 ally forbids the entrance of any vessel — a grave inconvenience to those 
 whose business is occasionally interrupted by the raging breakers on 
 the bar, but a feature which secures a beautifully calm lake, in which 
 all the ranges of blue distant hills and wooded headlands lie fault- 
 lessly mirrored. 
 
 The name of Batticaloa is said to be derived from the Tamil 
 words Matta Kalappa^ meaning ' Mud-Lake,' and the little isle on 
 which the Portuguese built their town and fort is called Puliyantivu, 
 or ' 'I'he Isle of the Tamarind-trees.' This they did in 1627 without 
 permission of the King of Kandy, who thereupon invoked the aid of 
 the Dutch. These in 1638 arrived in force from Java with six ships- 
 of-war, captured and destroyed the fort, and then proceeded to build 
 one for themselves, which remains to this day, with the invariable 
 uncompromisingly plain chapel within its precincts. 
 
 Likewise within the fort, and scattered round three sides of a 
 grassy common, are white houses all roofed with red tiles, each 
 bungalow standing in its own pleasant garden. The peaceful ceme- 
 tery occupies a prominent position on this green common, one side 
 of which is washed by the lake, whose farther shores are densely 
 clothed with cocoa-palms. 
 
 One of those red-tiled houses and one little corner in that still 
 God's acre possess a very special interest in our family history, as the 
 scenes of the close of this first chapter in tlic life of one very dear 
 
 to US." 
 
 ' See Chapter iv. A glance at the maii will well repay the trouble. 
 ■•* See page 248.
 
 364 71J'n HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 After watching a gorgeous sunset from the ramparts of the old 
 Dutch fort, when earth and lake and sky seemed transformed to 
 glowing gold and the rosy oleanders shone red as rubies, we rowed 
 in the quiet moonlight to listen to the faint notes of the far-famed 
 ' musical shell-fish,' which are only to be heard in the dry season, so 
 we were fortunate in the time of our visit. When the lake is swollen 
 by the rains the depth of water deadens the faint submarine chorus. 
 
 That night there was not a breath of wind nor the least ripple to 
 disturb the dead calm, and we distinctly heard the tiny voices, each 
 apparently producing a succession of notes, as if you gently tapped 
 a tumbler with a steel knitting-pin, the combination of these pro- 
 ducing faint rippling thrills, just like the vibration when you rub the 
 rim of a finger-glass with a moist finger. 
 
 We rowed very gently, halting at different points where alone the 
 sounds were audible, whence we inferred that the musicians live in 
 colonies. The Tamil fishermen attribute the notes to the inmate of 
 a small pointed shell which they call ooria cflolooroa cradoe, ' the 
 crying-shell ;' ' but this shell is found in other lagoons where it shows 
 no talent for singing, and, in truth, no one seems able to identify this 
 little minstrel of the Batticaloa lake. 
 
 Less pleasant inhabitants of the lake are the crocodiles, which are 
 large and numerous, ranging from six inches to twenty feet in length. 
 The former, of course, are the newly hatched babies. 
 
 We were much interested in watching the fishers shooting fish by 
 firelight, which they did with almost unerring aim. They go out at 
 sunset, and having kindled a bright fire in a brazier in the centre of 
 their boat, they stand at the prow with a large bow and arrow — the 
 latter attached to a long string, whereby they draw in the silvery fish 
 which, moth-like, have been attracted to their doom by the glare on 
 the dark waters. The strangely shaped boats and dark figures, and 
 the reflections of these moving fires, with the bright moonlight just 
 silvering the tall dark palms, presented a succession of very striking 
 scenes. 
 
 A few days later we were privileged to witness a scene of far more 
 enduring interest. On Sunday the Bishop held service in English 
 for the general community of Britons and Burghers, and afterwards 
 in Tamil for the converts of that race, assisted by their own native 
 clergyman. 
 
 The latter had the happiness of telling him of the remarkable 
 
 ' Coithitim Pii/nslre,
 
 BATTICALOA 365 
 
 (and in Ceylon quite uni(iue) conversion of all the inhabitants of a 
 neighbouring village — that is to say, that all had resolved en masse to 
 give up the worship of the Tamil (Hindoo) gods, and to become the 
 faithful servants of the One True (jod. They had already given 
 substantial proof of being thoroughly in earnest, for although very 
 poor people— only despised toddy-drawers — of the Nallavar caste, 
 they had quite of their own accord subscribed so liberally that they 
 had raised sufficient money to buy a piece of land as the site for 
 their village church, and had already built a temporary house in 
 which to meet for service. 
 
 These earnest converts now craved Christian baptism, and the 
 native clergyman requested the Bishop to go to their village and 
 admit inirty men to that holy Sacrament. About 130 women and 
 children were kept back for fuller instruction. 
 
 On a lovely afternoon ' we proceeded by boat to the village of 
 Navatkuda (/.^., the Bay of the Jambu-tree or Rose-apple,* a waxy 
 pink fruit with a flavour like the perfume of rose-leaves), which lies 
 on the shores of the lake, about two miles from Batticaloa. 
 
 There, on the grassy palm-fringed shore of the clear blue lake, we 
 found the 160 men, women, and children who had resolved on this 
 great step, assembled to receive the servant of their newly-found 
 Master. Brown men with large turbans and waist-cloths of bright- 
 coloured calico, and brown women and children with glossy black 
 hair and brilliant drapery, and of course (however poor) adorned 
 with some sort of metal bracelets and anklets, always ornamental. 
 They were a very nice-looking lot, and all reverently escorted the 
 Bishop to their little temporary chapel, which was hung with white 
 calico (' the honours of the white cloth '), and prettily decorated with 
 palm leaves in the native style. 
 
 Nothing could have been more impressive than the baptismal 
 service which followed, and all listened with the deepest and most 
 earnest attention to the Bishoi)'s address, charging one and all to 
 stand steadfast unto the end, in the face of whatever difficulties 
 might await them. Then, as the sun set, we bade them farewell, and 
 rowed back to Batticaloa in the stillness of rapidly-deepening twilight, 
 watching the gleaming reflections of many boat-fires as the fishers 
 started for their evening sport. 
 
 Very shortly after this the Bishop's health became so seriously 
 affected that he was compelled to resign his charge in Ceylon and 
 
 >■ September 10th, 1873. "' ' The Malay Apple' [Eugenia Mahuceiisis).
 
 366 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 return to Britain ; and tliough the remembrance of the scene on the 
 shores of the lake has often come back to me, it is only quite 
 recently that 1 have obtained details of the grievous and pitiless 
 persecution which (albeit under protection of the Union Jack) these 
 our fellow-subjects and fellow-Christians have endured during all 
 these long years, for no other reason than that, being of very low 
 caste — toddy-drawers ' — they had presumed to support a resident 
 schoolmaster, and they and their children had obtained a little 
 ludimentary education. For religious teaching they were dependent 
 on the visits of a catechist, and occasionally of a Tamil clergyman, 
 the Rev. A. Vethacan. 
 
 From the time of their conversion they declined to carry wood to 
 the idol temples, and they abstain from Sunday- work, except the 
 necessary collection of the sap in the early morning. But, worst of all, 
 it isaverred that some of these low-caste people have actually ventured 
 to carry umbrellas to shelter them from the blazing sun ! These 
 are the sole offences of which they have been guilty, and for which 
 they have repeatedly been cruelly beaten and insulted by unneigh- 
 bourly neighbours of the Fisher caste, who (taking advantage of their 
 sometimes prolonged absence at different cocoa-nut plantations, where 
 they have been employed in the dangerous work of toddy drawing) have 
 again and again maliciously destroyed their poor palm-leaf and mud 
 huts, so that on their return they have found their houses all wrecked. 
 
 The persecution can scarcely be ascribed to envy of any advan- 
 tages conferred on these poor Christians by their profession of faith, 
 for they do not seem to have received any sympathy or support from 
 the large Christian community in Batticaloa, and they have never yet 
 been able to improve on their original rude school-chapel, though 
 years ago they collected a great heap of bricks, hoping soon to be 
 able to build a simple church. 
 
 To this effort they were encouraged by the present Bishop,- who 
 visited them in 1889, and being deeply touched by manifest proofs 
 of their genuine Christianity, earnestly commended their work to the 
 sympathy of the Church in Batticaloa. But beyond the collection of 
 a small sum of money by the Bishop himself, nothing seems to have 
 been done, and probably the very fact of the Bishop's visit stirred up 
 the jealousy of the Fishers. Anyhow, on January 6, 1890, they com- 
 menced a most unprovoked series of attacks on the poor Christians, 
 
 1 The work of collecting the sap of the palni-blobsoins is described in page 418. 
 
 2 The Right Rev. R. S. Copleston, D.D.
 
 BA TTICALOA 367 
 
 two of whom were so seriously wounded that they had to be carried 
 to the hospital at Batticaloa, their assailants proceeding to burn the 
 school-chapel with its benches and simple furnishings, and totally 
 destroy the village. 
 
 Nevertheless, on the following Sunday the catechist assembled 
 his congregation as usual, and held service beneath the shadow of 
 the trees beside the calm lake. 
 
 Of course, as in duty bound, the Rev, A. Vethacan reported the 
 disgraceful business to the Magistrate and Government Agent, 
 and the ringleaders having been secured, several were deservedly 
 sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. None of the Christians 
 were found to be at all in fault, having acted solely in self-defence. 
 
 As they did not dare to return to rebuild their village on the 
 former site, the Government Agent determined at first to provide for 
 them a new settlement on Government land in another part of the 
 district ; but believing that after the leader of the aggressions had 
 been committed to prison all would be peaceful, he resolved to erect 
 new huts on the old site, and having done so, invited the Christians 
 to return. This they were afraid to do, and the headman, whose 
 duty it was to bring them back, asked Mr. Vethacan to come over 
 and persuade them to do so. 
 
 Bound on this peaceful errand to his sorely-tried flock, the good 
 old clergyman started, as he had so often done, to cross the calm 
 lake to Navatkuda, and at 7.30 a.m. ' he landed on the grassy shore, 
 expecting to find the headman waiting for him. That official was 
 late, but Mr. Vethacan perceived a man coming towards him armed 
 with a gun and brandishing a sword, and recognised one of the most 
 bitter aggressors, and one, moreover, who had been hurt Ijy one of 
 the Christians in self-defence (as had been proved in the court). 
 
 On seeing this truculent-looking person apjoroach, Mr. Vethacan 
 returned to his boat and shoved off from the land, whereupon the 
 assailant began pelting him with stones, and threatening to fire if the 
 boatman did not at once return, which the cowardly fellow, being in 
 mortal terror, did. The miscreant then fell on Mr. Vethacan with 
 his sword, wounding him very severel)', and then went off, leaving 
 him on the ground half dead. 
 
 There he lay in the blazing sun for about two hours before any 
 one came to his assistance, his boatman having gone off to Batticaloa 
 to inform the Government Agent of the assault. The latter started 
 
 1 On the ist December, 1890.
 
 363 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 al once, bul iiicl another boat in whicli the victim was being brought 
 to the hospital, his clothes all saturated with blood. He was found 
 to have received several severe wounds on the arms, the first finger 
 of the left hand had been cut off, and several others were severely 
 injured, and he had lost so much blood and received so grave a 
 shock that at first it was feared his life was in danger. 
 
 Happily, however, all went on well, and with good care and 
 nursing he has made a good recovery, and after five months was able 
 to resume his duties. Ten months elapsed ere the case was tried, 
 when it is satisfactory to learn that the cowardly assailant was then 
 sentenced to ten months' imprisonment. It is equally satisfactory to 
 learn that this long delay was due to the fact that there was no spring 
 assize either at Trincomalee or Batticaloa, owing to the general 
 absence of crime in the Eastern Province, and the fact that there 
 was no other case for trial. In order to teach the people to keep 
 the peace, a police force has been quartered in the village, for which 
 they will have to pay about i,6oo rupees a year — a salutary lesson. 
 
 The Christians very naturally refuse to return to their old quarters, 
 so it has been decided to remove them to the other side of Batticaloa. 
 Their chief regret is that they will thus be removed from the neigh- 
 bourhood of a large Mahommedan village, where they have hitherto 
 got work from employers who happily ignore caste questions. 
 
 Surely it would be well that some proof of sympathy was extended 
 to these long-suffering Christians, and the Eishop earnestly hopes 
 that funds may be placed at his disposal to enable him to build their 
 church, though not on the site which they secured so many years ago, 
 and also to secure the salary of a catechist who may endeavour to 
 turn the hearts of the persecutors, and win them also to the know- 
 ledge and love of the Master, Whose love recognises no distinction 
 of caste. ^ 
 
 For the whole difficulty has really arisen from these wretched 
 petty caste privileges, and the determination "of the Fishers that no . 
 lower caste should rise in the social scale or presume to encroach on 
 their prerogatives. Of these, none is so jealously guarded as that of 
 carrying an umbrella in scorching sun or pitiless rain ! 
 
 A few years ago some men of the Barber caste presumed thus to 
 offend on the grand occasion of a wedding. The Fishers took umbrage, 
 smashed the umbrellas, and a melee ensued in which several of the 
 
 1 Any donations for this object will be gladly received by Mrs. Coplestone, 
 16 Denmark Place, Brighton.
 
 BATTICALOA 369 
 
 ' liigher caste' were stabbed. This led to a riot in which sundry 
 houses were burnt, and all Barbers punished for becoming proud. 
 Natives in good position declared it ' served them right.' A number 
 of Fishers were sent to prison, l)ut to this day the Barbers dare not 
 carry umbrellas. It is alleged that the Nallavars of Navatkuda had 
 been guilty of this offence, and that consequently the Fishers resolved 
 to give them a lesson.' 
 
 As an example of how low caste acts as a social disability even in 
 the professional world, I may instance the case of a man whose father, 
 although a toddy-drawer by birth, has made money in plumbago, 
 and educated his son as a proctor. His Tamil Ijrethreh of the law, 
 however, would not allow him to sit at the table with them in his 
 native town, and he has been compelled to seek practice elsewhere. 
 
 Such a detail in an English court of law sounds strange in 
 Ihitain, where we are so effectually learning that 'money maketh man,' 
 
 and where 
 
 ' (jolcl hath the sway 
 We all obey.' 
 
 Imagine the son of a rich ironmaster being professionally scouted 
 on account of his father being a self-made man ! 
 
 Leaving Batticaloa at sunrise in a wretched palanquin, one exe- 
 crable horse dragged us four miles along the lake, and then was 
 replaced by one rather worse, till we came to a deep sand track, im- 
 passable for wheels. There the Bishop's horses met us, and we rode 
 to the shores of the Moondim Aar lake or river, where a boat was 
 waiting to take us to Chandivelle, a large cocoa-palm plantation 
 belonging to one of my brother's old friends. 
 
 A hospitable welcome awaited us in a real rough-and-ready 
 bungalow beneath the palms, a smaller separate one being assigned 
 to Miss Jermyn and myself, which formed our comfortable head- 
 quarters for several days. It was my first experience of living on a 
 cocoa plantation, and was quite ' a new sensation ' in nuts ! Every 
 morning the great elephant-cart went round the estate, collecting 
 such cocoa-nuts as had fallen during the night, and by midday a 
 huge pile had accumulated. These nuts being fully ripe, were then 
 broken up wholesale with hatchets by a band of almost nude coolies, 
 and very hard work they had, the outer husk being so thick. Then 
 jmother lot scoop out the kernel, either to be dried in the sun as 
 
 1 See Chapter .xxii. Subdivisions of Fisher Caste. 
 
 B B
 
 370 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 copra for curry-sluff, or sent off lo the oil-mill. On every side 
 picturesque brown Tamil men in big turbans, women in bright 
 draperies with ear-rings and nose-rings, bangles and anklets of silver 
 or base metal, and children with silver charms buf little drapery, 
 gave life and colour and interest to the scene ; and I for one was 
 never weary of watching these ever-varying groups in their daily 
 avocations, especially when they gathered round the primitive well to 
 fill their great red earthenware chatties or brass lotas, cooling them- 
 selves by emptying these over their heads. 
 
 A baby elephant wandered about as a playful pet, and one day a 
 snake-charmer brought a whole family of deadly col)ras to dance 
 before the verandah, whereon lay the ugly heads of several gigantic 
 crocodiles with large white teeth, and other hunting trophies. These 
 and many other characteristic details, such as prickly aloes and tall 
 cotton-trees, were our surroundings, all bathed in the mellow sunlight 
 streaming through the golden and brown lower leaves of the tall 
 palms, which being right above us, revealed all their wealth of nuts 
 and blossom. 
 
 Then at night the stars and the clear moonlight were so perfect 
 that we could scarcely go indoors. Specially attractive were the great 
 bonfires (made of palm-leaves and the outer husks of the nuts), round 
 which about a hundred of the estate black cattle were picketed as a 
 protection against leopards. It would be difficult to imagine a more 
 striking scene for an artist's brush than these groups of dark animals 
 beneath the palms, which glowed so red in the firelight, while a silver 
 shimmer of moonlight played on ever-waving fronds. 
 
 One night we approached that living picture too quickly, and the 
 cattle mistook the strange white women for leopards, and some in 
 their terror broke loose and stampeded. 
 
 I should perhaps mention, as a practical though unromantic 
 detail, that these large herds of estate cattle are kept on various 
 plantations solely for the sake of manure. I visited one estate where 
 1 80 head were kept at a cost of about ^2^500 per annum, their sole 
 other duty being to supply milk and butter for one couple, though 
 doubtless the coolies profited by the surplus. They are also allowed 
 a limited supply of cow-dung for coating the floors and the inner 
 walls of their houses, this being an effectual preventive of vermin ; it 
 is far too precious to be used as fuel, as in India. When coffee 
 began to be sickly, this manure fell into disfavour, as being pro- 
 ductive of obnoxious white grubs, and many estates sold their herds.
 
 BA TTICALOA 
 
 2,1^ 
 
 Now, however, it is proved that as a fertih'ser for tea it is of inestim- 
 able vakie. 
 
 I regret to learn that the grievous murrain which in 1890 deci- 
 mated so many herds has not spared this district, which reports a 
 decrease of 14,000 buffaloes and 6,200 black cattle. In the district 
 round Pollanarua and Minery 5,581 buffaloes and 5,223 black cattle 
 died, and many thousands more perished in the villages round Haputale 
 and throughout Uva. The mortality has been unnecessarily great 
 owing to the superstitious belief of the people that the murrain is the 
 work of demons, who would be incensed by direct interference with 
 their doings by any attempt to minister to sick beasts or observe 
 rational precautions, so that all efforts of the afflicted cattle- owners 
 are limited to making propitiatory offerings to the * ill, vile, evil 
 devils.' ^ 
 
 Our meat supply consisted largely of the flesh of wild pig, which 
 we did not consider equal to good English pork, so we were very 
 glad when the entertainment was varied by snipe, which are abundant 
 in the wet rice districts and all marshy places in the Eastern Province, 
 sometimes rising in flights of a dozen. I recently saw a letter from 
 this very estate in which the writer describes a sudden arrival of 
 unexpected guests, for whom, naturally, he had no provisions. He, 
 however, went off trustingly to his favourite preserve, and -in half an 
 hour returned, having bagged 17^ brace, which enabled him to feast 
 his friends on roast snipe, stewed snipe, grilled snipe, and snipe 
 curry ! 
 
 When Colonel Meaden was stationed at Trincomalee in 1872, 
 within easy reach of the brackish lake Tamblegam, he went out snipe- 
 shooting on seventeen days between January and April, and bagged 
 48 2 1 couple, the highest record being fifty-two couple one day, the 
 lowest being two couple. 
 
 And in occasional days in March, April, and May 1891, our 
 kinsman. Hector Macneal, of the Gordon Highlanders (grandson of 
 'The Old Forest Ranger'), bagged 375 couple in the low country 
 round Bentotta, in the south-west of the isle. 
 
 The bungalow stands close to a broad reach of the river, where in 
 
 ' For the benefit of any Southron who may not recognise the quotation, I may 
 explain that it refers to a Scotch minister's exposition of the character of Satan, and 
 how appropriately he was named. ' For, my brethren, if you take one letter from his 
 name, you find evil — he is the father of evil ; and if you take away a second, you find 
 vile ; and take yet another, and there remains ill ; so that he is just an ill, vile, evil 
 devil. ' 
 
 B B 2
 
 372 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 the early morning and in the dehcious cool of the evening I practised 
 rowing, under the able tuition of my host, and very soon had an 
 opportunity of turning my powers to good account on the occasion 
 of our visit to the Veddahs. 
 
 The Park Country through which we had travelled on our way to 
 Batticaloa lies on the southern verge of the region haunted (I can 
 scarcely say inhabited) by that strangely primitive race, supposed to 
 be descendants of the aborigines, who, upwards of two thousand years 
 ago, retreated to these wilds when the Singhalese conquerors arrived 
 here from Bengal, and have ever since maintained their isolation from 
 all contact with civilisation, only desiring to be left unmolested in 
 their own deep solitudes. At least this is still the attitude of the pure- 
 blooded Rock Veddahs, who conceal themselves in the caves and 
 forests among the foot-hills at the base of the great mountain centre — 
 a region known as ' Bintenne,' which describes broken country at the 
 base of the highlands, answering to ' The Terrai ' at the base of the 
 Himalayas. It used to be so pestilential that even camping there 
 generally resulted in jungle-fever, but now its character in that 
 respect has greatly improved, owing to considerable clearings of 
 forest. 
 
 This remote secluded region was, till very recently, untrodden 
 save by these wild shy tribes, themselves shunning the human 
 presence, and waging a noiseless warfare with wild beasts, silently 
 stalking till within ten paces of their quarry, then shooting with 
 noiseless bow and arrow — no disturbing firearms — and rarely letting 
 a wounded animal escape to be a living warning to his fellows. 
 
 They live in caves or in temporary grass huts (not in trees, as has 
 been sometimes stated), but they rove to and fro, following the 
 migration of game, which travels from one district to another in 
 search of w^ater-pools. When the water on the low ground is all 
 dried up, and the streams and pools are transformed to beds of dry 
 sand, the game betakes itself to the moist mountain pastures, and 
 the Veddahs follow, some of them owning small dogs to help them 
 in the chase. 
 
 They have long bows and arrows for big game, and very small 
 ones for birds. As regards the former, the bows, which are of very 
 flexible wood, are over six feet in length; taller than the ugly little 
 archers, who are often under five feet in height. The bowstring is 
 of twisted bark fibre greased, and the arrow (which is a light shaft 
 two and a half feet in length, and winged with feathers from the
 
 BATTICALOA 
 
 j/ J 
 
 l)eacock'.s wing) cariics a broad llal arrow-head fully six inches in 
 length, and sometimes twelve or even fifteen inches long. These 
 iron arrow-heads used to be the only manufactures of the civilised 
 world which they at all appreciated, and certainly in the hands of 
 keen marksmen they can do great execution. The archer holds his 
 bow in the right hand and pulls the string with the left hand. 
 
 Even the giant elephant does not escape, for the hunter glides 
 stealthily close up to him, and aiming at the heart, does his business 
 more swiftly than many a keen rifle-shot, who vainly seeks the little 
 brain in that thick skull. 
 
 Sometimes these archers fall in with elephants when they had 
 expected only small game, and when their quiver is stored only with 
 little short-headed arrows. Then they wait till the giant slowly lifts 
 his great foot, when, swift as thought, the winged shaft pierces his 
 sole. An angry stamp only drives the barb farther home, and the 
 hunter, well satisfied with his work, is content to wait, knowing that 
 very quickly the wound will fester, and that the poor brute, no longer 
 able to support his own ponderous weight, must lie dowai, an easy 
 victim to his foes. 
 
 Strange to say, this nice clean vegetarian, whose flesh is so greatly 
 appreciated in Africa, is despised by all races in Ceylon ; even the 
 Yeddahs never eat elephant, buffalo, or bear, though squirrels, mon- 
 gooses, and tortoises, kites and crows, owls, rats, and bats are highly 
 esteemed, while a roast monkey or a huge hideous iguana-lizard is an 
 ideal dainty. 
 
 They also catch fish in the rivers and neglected tanks, but their 
 chief store is deer's flesh cut in long strips and dried on a scaffolding 
 of sticks over a fire. It is then securely packed in bark and stowed 
 away in hollow trees, with a top-dressing of wild honey to exclude 
 the air. Then the hole is filled up with clay — a safe repository till 
 the next time their wanderings lead them to the same district. 
 
 When the chase fails to supply them with meat, they seek wild 
 berries and roots, and fixiling these, they allay the pangs of hunger by 
 chewing bark, which also supplies their clothing. After being soaked 
 and beaten till it becomes pliable, it is stitched together with fibres 
 of the jungle-vines, which hang so ready for use in all the forests. 
 But even this simple raiment was formerly considered de luxe, for 
 when my brother used, in his solitary forest wanderings, unexpectedly 
 to come on Rock Yeddahs, men and women alike were quite naked 
 and truly hideous \ their mass of long, shaggy black hair, and the
 
 374 ^^J^'O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 men's long, uncunibcd l)eards, all filthy and matted, making their 
 head seem too large in proportion to their ill-shaped limbs. All are 
 insignificant in stature, and their wide nostrils, large jaws, and pro- 
 jecting mouths and teeth, are certainly not according to our idea of 
 beauty ! 
 
 Now, however, they so far condescend to contact with civilisation 
 that they are willing to accept a certain amount of calico and earthen- 
 ware chatties, as well as the much-prized iron arrow-heads, hatchets, 
 and salt, supplied by Moormen, as the Mahommedan traders are 
 called, and in exchange for which they place beeswax, elk's horns, 
 deer's flesh, and occasionally an elephant's tusk in some conspicuous 
 place. 
 
 Lucifer-matches, however, have not yet superseded the ancient 
 way of obtaining fire by rapidly twirling a long pointed stick in a 
 hole made in a piece of dry old wood, held by the feet. Atoms of 
 dry wood are thrown in as tinder, and after a few minutes of hard 
 work a spark appears and fire is kindled. 
 
 The language of this strange race consists chiefly of a very limited 
 range of guttural sounds, quite incomprehensible to the Singhalese ; 
 and as regards religion, they have literally none, having no knowledge 
 of any God, nor any instinct of worship beyond offering propitiatory 
 sacrifices to certain spirits of earth and water, as their forefathers, the 
 Yakkas, did in bygone ages, to avert thunder and lightning ; and 
 they also perform some devil-dances on behalf of sick persons. 
 
 These really wild Rock Veddahs are now few in number, and are 
 very rarely seen. Hideous and filthy as they are, the Singhalese, 
 with their intense reverence for high position and ancient blood, 
 acknowledge these gentlest of savages as of very high caste, ranking 
 next to the Vellales, or cultivators, who rank highest of all. 
 
 The Village Veddahs, with whom we had several interviews, are 
 a stronger, more manly-looking race, but are not of pure blood, 
 having frequently intermarried with Kandyans and Singhalese, whose 
 language (in a very corrupt form) they have adopted. The Coast 
 Veddahs, who work to a certain extent with the Tamil Fishers, speak 
 a Tamil /rt'/cvV. These support themselves by fishing and by weaving 
 mats and baskets. 
 
 The total number of Veddahs is now estimated at about two 
 thousand, but I need scarcely say that Rock Veddahs do not furnish 
 census statistics ! Even the A^illage Veddahs have a gipsy-like love 
 of migration, and think little of moving, their frail homes being
 
 BATTICALOA 375 
 
 simply constructed of mud, ico'ds, and palm leaves. Efforts have, 
 however, been made to induce them to settle by allotments of land 
 for cultivation. Wells were dug for them, cocoa-palms and bread- 
 fruit trees planted, as were also fields of Indian-corn, kurukkan, rice, 
 and other grain, manioc and cassava roots, plantains, gourds, and 
 sundry vegetables: seed and agricultural implements were provided 
 for them — in short, everything done in the endeavour to tame them, 
 with the result that a considerable number of them are becoming 
 reconciled to a stationary life, with some simple comforts around 
 them. 
 
 In 1838 the Wesleyan missionaries at Batticaloa Ixigan to try 
 teaching them, and have continued the effort ever since, with moderate 
 success, a few having embraced Christianity. 
 
 Manyof those who were formerly scattered along the sea-coast 
 were persuaded to congregate in villages prepared for them in forest 
 clearings near the shores of beautiful Vendeloos Bay, to the north of 
 Batticaloa. At one of these villages the Bishop had, in the previous 
 year, opened a school for the bright, intelligent Veddah children, and 
 to inspect this was one of the objects of the present journey. 
 
 So we started from Chandivelle at early dawn one lovely morning 
 and rowed about nine miles down the Nattoor River to Vallachena, 
 two miles from Vendeloos Bay, where the river enters the sea. (The 
 river is quite salt even at Chandivelle.) The shores and many little 
 isles are clothed with mangrove, acacia, and other trees, and the 
 scenery is pleasant. 
 
 Many Veddahs had assembled to welcome the Bishop on his 
 return, and presently some women arrived and very shyly came for- 
 ward to see their white sisters (probably the first who had visited 
 them). 
 
 First the Bishop examined the school-children, and some of the 
 most advanced wrote sentences for us in Tamil on the ' ola ' or strips 
 of prepared palmyra leaf, which form the substitute for paper not only 
 for copy-books, but for precious manuscripts, though the talipot-palm 
 is preferred for the most valuable books. 
 
 Then we all squatted on the dry grass beneath a white awning 
 which was suspended from the trees, and the native clergyman read 
 service in Tamil, selecting Genesis i. and St. Mark i. as the Lessons. 
 Then tlie ]]ishop spoke on these, Mr. Samonader interpreting. 
 
 After service we begged for an illustration of the far-famed skill 
 of the Veddahs as archers in the use of their little bows, which they
 
 376 TIFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 liad brought wilh ihcin. This, however, proved a lamentable failure, 
 which we charitably attriijuted to the awe of our presence, but which 
 seems to be generally the case in })resence of Europeans, their success 
 in bringing down game being rather due to their extreme caution in 
 cree[)ing close to their quarry ere hazarding an arrow. 
 
 In the afternoon, the Bishop, being ill and very tired, was obliged 
 to rest, so the native clergyman offered to row Miss Jermyn and me 
 some distance up the river in a small boat to a Veddah village of 
 palm-leaf and mud huts, overshadowed by tall palm and other trees. 
 Some of the men's huts were like those erected in the fields for the 
 sentinels watching the crops, namely, two platforms, one above the 
 other, raised on a scaffolding of rough-hewn poles, the upper platform 
 shaded by a light thatch. The regular dwelling-houses are very low, 
 only about eight feet high, and almost all consisting of palm-leaf 
 thatch, the upright side-walls being so very low. The people were quite 
 friendly, but very shy. 
 
 \\'hen we had gone round one village (and of course sketched a 
 little), we rowed on a little farther to another, and saw the people 
 making mats, grinding grain, &c. (korrakan, the small grain on which 
 the poorer villagers chiefly subsist ; it is made into hard uninviting 
 cakes, occasionally compounded with a good deal of dirt). 
 
 We thought to win a mother's heart by admiring her baby, but 
 found we had done quite the wrong thing, as admiration is supposed 
 to imply covetousness and involves great danger of the ' evil eye,' — a 
 baneful influence which is as sorely dreaded in Ceylon as in Italy, or 
 indeed in most other countries, including even Scotland.' 
 
 In almost all Eastern countries some device is resorted to to draw- 
 aside this malign Influence ; children are loaded with jewels, or they 
 are purposely left with dirty faces ; the trappings of camels and horses 
 are adorned with cowrie shells ; Mahommedans suspend ostrich eggs 
 from the ceilings of their rooms, and here in Ceylon earthenware jars 
 daubed with white paint are conspicuously stuck on the roof to attract 
 the eye which might cast the dreaded glamour on the house. 
 
 As evening drew on, we started on our homeward row down the 
 river, the native clergyman, as before, taking the oars, till, as we 
 passed a village, the headman came out and remonstrated on his 
 doing so, he being a high-caste man. The argument was evidently 
 
 ' As 1 noted when ' In tlie HeVjiides,' p. 261. Certainly, judging from such versesas 
 Mark vii. 22 and Proverbs xxviii. 22, the 'evil eye' must also have suggested some 
 very definite ill to the Jewish mind.
 
 BATTICALOA 377 
 
 effective, for the woiihy man appeared quite perplexed, evidently 
 fearing to lose influence with his flock. So to solve the dililiculty 
 (though I fear, perhaps, establishing a bad precedent), I took the 
 oars myself and rowed home — an easy task, being down-stream. 
 
 'i'hough 'caste' distinctions are by no means so obtrusive in 
 Ceylon as on the mainland of India, they are, nevertheless (as I have 
 already proved), sufficiently marked to be the occasion of many dif- 
 ficulties, especially in the formation of missionary schools, where 
 almost naked little brown brats of high caste sometimes l)egin by 
 displaying the most amazing spirit of contempt and persecution towards 
 those of lower caste. 
 
 The Singhalese (as worshippers of Buddha, who entirely con- 
 demned caste distinctions) ought to l:)e free from these distinctions, 
 but practically they make as much of them as any Hindoo, which is 
 perhaps not to be wondered at, seeing that they are descended from 
 the Brahminical conquerors who, under the leadership of Wijayo, 
 came from Bengal about the year 543 B.C., and overran Ceylon. 
 
 Then it was that the aborigines fled for refuge to the forests and 
 caves of the interior, and to the outlying isles of the north. The 
 former (who are supposed to be the ancestors of the Veddahs) were 
 thenceforward known as Yakkas, or demons, because their sole 
 religion consisted in propitiating the powers of evil. To the Yakkas 
 (whether demons or aborigines) is ascribed everything of unknown 
 origin, whether ruins of constructions which are deemed too great to 
 have been created by unaided human pow'er, or too rude to be the 
 handiwork of any existing race, such as certain huge dams, rock- 
 fortresses, (Ivrc. 
 
 Those who fled to the extreme north rendered special worship to 
 the cobra, and were accordingly named the Nagas, or cobras, and the 
 northern part of the isle was called Nagadipo, ' The Isle of Serpents.' 
 (As I have previously mentioned, on one at least of the small isles 
 near Jaffna there is still a temple where live cobras are reverently 
 tended by priests and priestesses, and receive devout worship.) 
 
 To this day, as we have seen, the Singhalese recognise the hideous 
 and filthy Veddahs to be worthy of all honour, as being of very high 
 caste ; so much so, that it would be no disgrace for a w'oman of good 
 social position to marry one of them, should her strange taste incline 
 her to do so. But, on the other hand, the most cruel and indelible 
 disgrace that could possibly be inflicted on a high-caste woman was to 
 give her to an outcast Rodiya (or Rodilla), a singularly beautiful race
 
 y;8 7'IVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 (al Icabt both men and women arc so in youth), wlio nevertheless 
 have ever been regarded as the lowest scum, their name even being 
 derived from rodda, ' filth.' 
 
 Under the Kandyan kings every phase of ignominy that could be 
 devised was heaped on these poor people, who are said to have been 
 degraded for ever and ever because one of their ancestors having, on one 
 occasion, about two thousand years ago, failed in procuring venison 
 for the king's table, substituted the flesh of a nice fat baby, of which 
 his Majesty partook with much relish. Hut the crime was discovered, 
 and the whole clan of the miscreant shared in his disgrace, and 
 thenceforward all their posterity were ceaselessly persecuted and 
 oppressed till English rule freed them. 
 
 They were forbidden to enter a Buddhist temple or any village ; 
 they might not till the soil, or draw water from a well, or even cross 
 a ferry ; even the stream on wliich their shadow fell was defiled for a 
 while ; they must get off the path to avoid the possibility of any one 
 brushing against them, and so being polluted ; they were compelled 
 to salute every one by raising their joined hands above their head 
 and then making lowly obeisance ; men and women alike were 
 forbidden to wear any clothing below the knee or above the 
 waist ; and they might not even build a decent cottage with a 
 wall on each side, but only hovels constructed of palm-leaf hurdles 
 leaning against a back-wall of mud. A curious detail of petty but 
 very real persecution was the prohibition to divide their burden into 
 two bundles, hanging from each end of the ' pingo ' or shoulder-yoke, 
 as is done by all other natives, in Ceylon as in China ; the Rodiyas 
 might only carry one bundle, and so lost all balance. 
 
 They were only allowed to earn their bread by guarding the crops 
 from the ravages of wild beasts, or by the polluting work of burying 
 the carcases of dead cattle, of whose raw hides they manufactured 
 strong ropes for binding elephants. Once these were made, any caste 
 might handle them freely. They were compelled to furnish all 
 Government leather-work, also they might kill monkeys and prepare 
 their skins for covering native drum.s. For a member of another 
 caste to touch a Rodiya was accounted such pollution, that when in 
 the early days of British domination it was necessary to arrest some 
 of them on a charge of murder, the native police refused to lay hands 
 on them, but offered to shoot them down from a distance. This was 
 strictly correct from a native point of view, any man being at liberty 
 to shoot a Rodiya as freely as though he were a noxious animal.
 
 BA TTICALOA 379 
 
 Any Government orders ur other communications to be made to 
 Rodiyas were generally sent by charcoal-burners, as being the lowest 
 of all recognised castes, and the messenger, if possible, delivered it 
 across a flowing stream, to save his own respectability. Yet, as they 
 were deemed to be fortune-tellers and dealers in witchcraft, doubtless 
 many consulted them on the sly. 
 
 Whatever may have been the true origin of these beautiful out- 
 casts, it is certain that their ranks have been recruited in later ages 
 by whole families of the highest castes, who have been degraded to 
 the rank of Rodiyas as a punishment for treason, sacrilege, or other 
 grievous crimes. 
 
 As they were forbidden to till the soil, it was enacted that in 
 time of harvest each cultivator should bestow on them a small gift of 
 rice, and very small it sometimes was. On one occasion, however, a 
 stingy man was paid out for having given a Rodiya an exceptionally 
 small dole. The angry man walked up to the threshold floor 
 and scattered it broadcast over the grain which was there heaped 
 up, thereby polluting the whole. Happily British rule was firmly 
 established, so the infuriated farmer dared not shoot the outcast, as 
 he wished to do. He was recommended to sue him before a law- 
 court, but this he deemed quite too derogatory to his own dignity, so 
 the Rodiya escaped. 
 
 Of course, under British rule caste distinctions are nominally 
 ignored, so the Rodiyas now have better houses and some home 
 comforts ; some even own small farms and a few head of cattle, but 
 the old influence asserts itself, and their proud Kandyan neighbours 
 make them mark their cattle by hanging round their necks a cocoa- 
 nut-shell fastened with a strip of leather, and in many petty ways 
 contrive to remind them of their inferiority. 
 
 (When Ernst Haeckel, the naturalist, was living in the rest-house 
 at Belligama, pursuing the study of marine zoology, his devoted 
 assistant was a beautiful Rodiya lad, to whose unfailing zeal and 
 dexterity in everything he bears the highest testimony. The amaze- 
 ment of the villagers was unbounded when this despised outcast was 
 promoted to such honour as that of being the right-hand of the man 
 of wondrous scientific knowledge, and the grief of the poor lad when 
 liis employer de^Darted may well l)e imagined.) 
 
 Strange to say, low in the social scale as these poor people rank, 
 two castes rank so much lower that the Rodiyas refuse to have any- 
 thing to say to them. These are the Hanomoreyos of Uva (manu-
 
 38o TIFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 faclurcrs of hclel-boxes) and llic Ambctteyos or barbers. What they 
 can have done worse than inveigling a king to eat human flesh no 
 one can imagine. Just fancy entrusting your face and head to be 
 shaved by a man whose very touch at other times would be pollu- 
 tion ! The village dhobies or washermen, here as in India, are 
 anollier example of how the highest castes depend on the low castes 
 for their cleansing and beautifying. Strange to say, all castes, even 
 ihe lowest, employ the dhobie, and would consider it quite wrong to 
 do their own washing ! 
 
 One singular duty of the chief dhobie in each district is that of 
 preparing temporary bungalows for the reception of such officials as 
 are entitled thereto in out-of-the-way places where rest-houses are 
 not available, and we were now entering on a series of marches right 
 into the interior of the isle, where we were entirely dependent on 
 these for our night quarters. While travelling with the Governor, I 
 had seen ' mushroom villages ' of such forest bungalows provided for 
 all the suite, albeit to be occupied for one night only. 
 
 Of course, the preparations for the Bishop and his party were on 
 a much smaller scale, though answering their purpose equally well. 
 These huts are lightly constructed of bamboos, reeds, and plaited 
 palm-leaves or ' cadjans ' on a framework of wood, and the interior is 
 all hung with white calico. This is called ' the honour of the white 
 cloth,' which is accorded to all persons to whom special honour is 
 due. At first I marvelled how so much white calico could be 
 obtained in the heart of the forest, but we soon discovered that each 
 strip was the spare garment of some villager. The village washerman 
 knows exactly who is possessed of such extra property, and he goes 
 round borrowing, and so the temporary guest-house looks delightfully 
 cool and clean to welcome the tired travellers. 
 
 ^^^ithin an hour of their departure the huts are demolished ; 
 perhaps the woodwork and palm-leaf cadjans, and certainly all the 
 white cloths, are restored to their proper owners, probably with an 
 infinitesimal share of the vale bestowed on the dhobie. 
 
 Sometimes, however, mischievous monkeys begin the work of 
 demolition without waiting for the departure of the travellers. I 
 specially remember one day when we returned to our grass-thatched 
 home on the embankment of the great tanks at Pollanarua, where we 
 halted for some days, and found a whole troop of monkeys on the 
 roof in wildest glee, tearing up all the thatch ! 
 
 Of course, in such a hut the floor is simply dry earth (or in some
 
 BATTICALOA 381 
 
 cases very wet earth), f)ut for such an expedition a traveller's luggage 
 must include a roll of taliput palm-leaf mats, in addition to a coolie- 
 load of simple bedding, pillow, mosquito-net, &c. 
 
 Of course, travelling on these unbeaten tracks, where roads are 
 still unknown, was specially interesting ; day by day we rode by 
 jungle-paths, perhaps following the slow footsteps of some dignified 
 headman who was proud to act as the Bishop's guide. Sometimes 
 we followed the course of fine rivers overshadowed by magnificent 
 trees, but in the month of September the streams were well-nigh dry, 
 and we were able to ford them without difficulty. The one exception 
 was when we came to the broad, beautiful Mahavelli-Ganga, the 
 largest river in Ceylon, to which I had already done homage where it 
 flows round the mountain capital of Kandy. 
 
 We halted for a delicious rest beneath one of the great trees 
 overhanging the wide glassy stream, while the horses waded and swam 
 across. Then we followed by boat, and again halted on the farther 
 shore in a green glade where the cool moist grass had attracted a 
 swarm of gorgeous butterflies, which floated on their fairy-like wings 
 as though holding a festive assembly. One family of these lovely 
 fairies has large velvety black wings spotted with vivid crimson ; 
 another, which measures six inches across the wings, has upper-wings 
 of black velvet, but under-wings of glossy yellow satin. 
 
 All insects were not equally attractive. We found minute eye- 
 flies and mosquitos especially irritating, nowhere more so than at the 
 huts where we had spent the previous night, close to two ancient 
 tanks, one quite and the other partially dried up. These huts were 
 literally swarming with long-legged spiders, thousands of them 
 clustered together, like bunches of black hair. Those were not 
 pleasant quarters, but the natives were very kind, and brought most 
 welcome gifts of milk, which, however, we felt sorry to be obliged to 
 accept, as of course the drought affected even their supply of drink- 
 ing-water, which is at all times a difficulty, and at many places where 
 we halted it was so foul that it had to be boiled and filtered twice 
 over ere we dared to use it. But under any circumstances we were 
 strictly forbidden ever to drink a drop of water which had not been 
 both boiled and filtered once, ^\'here it was obviously impure, 
 obedience was comparatively easy ; but where it looked clear and 
 sparkling, and we were parched with thirst, we were sometimes 
 sorely tempted, though well aware of the necessity of strict obedience, 
 bad water being the prolific cause of divers diseases, such as fever ancl
 
 382 TiyO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 dysentery, in the mere traveller, but too often, in the case of poor 
 villagers compelled 'to use it hal)itually, it is in a great measure 
 responsible for the far more terrible diseases known as Beri-beri and 
 ' parangi,' resembling leprosy. Perhaps the most blessed result of 
 the recent restoration of so many of the great tanks is that, with the 
 abundant supply of good water, and consequently of wholesome 
 grain, this awful malady has almost disappeared from the districts 
 thus favoured. 
 
 The natives purify drinking-water for their own use by rubbing 
 the inside of the earthen water-vessel with certain seeds which have 
 the virtue of attracting to themselves all noxious properties, and in 
 five minutes all impurities sink to the bottom, leaving the water 
 clear. One of the seeds is a small nut called Ambu-prasa-dana, the 
 other is the fruit of a large forest tree, the Ingenni-gedia. It is a 
 gelatinous berry in a woody outer case. 
 
 A good many years ago an admirable village filter was invented 
 by G. W. R. Campbell,^ consisting simply of three large wicker 
 baskets, each one foot smaller than the last, the space bet\\een the 
 two outermost being tightly packed (below and on every side) with 
 clean sand ; the space between the next two being similarly packed 
 with charcoal. This was sunk in a foul village tank, leaving the 
 surface above water, and in a little while the innermost basket filled 
 with pure clear water, whence all comers might draw. Simple as is 
 this contrivance, the natives, however, generally prefer their own 
 ways, and the use of the purifying seeds which Nature provides all 
 ready for them. 
 
 I am told that in preparing such a filter, vegetable charcoal, 
 freshly burned and powdered, suffices (with sand and gravel) to 
 remove vegetable matter, but that only charcoal of animal substance 
 can remove animal impurity. Whether this is true, however, I cannot 
 say. 
 
 I may mention, as a hint for thirsty travellers, the advantage of 
 carrying bottles of cold tea for use on the march, each bottle being 
 wrapped in a wet towel, the evaporation from which in the burning 
 sun secures most welcome coolness. 
 
 Having crossed the ' Great Sandy River,' a short beautiful ride 
 
 brought us to our bourne, namely, the ruins of the ancient city of 
 
 PoUanarua, where we found that" a group of most delightful huts had 
 
 been erected for us beneath the cool shade of large trees growing 
 
 1 For many years Inspector-General of Police in Ceylon.
 
 POLLANARUA 383 
 
 actually 011 the embankment of Topa-Wcwa, the great artificial lake, 
 on whose still waters floated the loveliest waterlilies, and across which 
 we looked away to the lovely blue ranges of the far-distant Matale 
 hills, rising above the wide expanse of dark forest which encompasses 
 the lake on every side. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 POLLANARUA 
 
 King Prakrama Bahu — Small-pox — Rain charms — Devil-bird — Legend— Inscription 
 on the stone book — Temple of the Tooth — Divers temples, relic-shrines, Iiatlis — 
 Porcupine trap — Rock-temple — Gigantic images — Intercourse with China — Minery 
 Lake — Oath-stone— Temple of the tank gods— Circles of pottery — Crocodiles — 
 Kantalay tank— Taniblegam oysters. 
 
 Although Pollanarua (or Topare, as the modern village is now 
 commonly called by the islanders, from Topa-Wewa, the artificial 
 lake on which it stands) is less interesting to the antiquarian than 
 Anuradhapura, from the fact that its glory as a city only commenced 
 when that of the latter had waned, to less critical eyes it is equally 
 amazing, as being a mighty city now literally buried beneath many 
 feet of soil, and all covered with green turf and jungle ; the busy 
 streets and their inhabitants have alike disappeared beneath the 
 sod, and the whole is, as it were, one vast cemetery for houses and 
 men. 
 
 Only here and there stately ruins remain to tell of the vanished 
 glories; and though these are on the whole less impressive than 
 those of Anuradhapura, in that the imperishable stone sculptures 
 have in many cases been replaced by brickwork and very fine stucco, 
 the general effect of the place is more attractive; there are more 
 ■picturesque 'bits' to tempt an artist's brush, owing perhaps to its 
 utter desolation, and to the fact that it has as yet scarcely been touched 
 by the marks of restoration and excavation. 
 
 The beautiful lake Topa-Wewa, which was originally fifteen miles 
 in circumference, was formed by King Upatissa II., who reigned 
 A.D. 368 ; but not till a.d. 650 do we hear of a royal palace 
 having been built here by King Sri Sangabo II. Both these were 
 monarchs of the Sula-A\'ansae or 'Lesser Dynasty,' so called in 
 Singhalese records in uncomplimentary contrast to the grand
 
 384 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 moiiarchs of the Surya-AWmsac or Solar Dynasty (also called the 
 Maha-Wansac or rowcrful race), which had so long reigned at 
 Anuradhapura. 
 
 That ancient capital was not forsaken in favour of Pollanarua till 
 about A.D. 769, when, weary of battling with continual invasions of 
 the Malabars, the Singhalese monarchs moved south-eastward to this 
 more inaccessible district, and created a new city, more beautiful 
 than that which they had abandoned, with temples and palaces 
 which awakened the wonder of all comers, while the abundant water- 
 supply was secured by the formation of enormous tanks, one of which, 
 the great artificial Lake Minery, is twenty-two miles in circumference. 
 Even now, in its neglected and ruinous condition, that is its size in 
 wet seasons, although in years of great drought it now evaporates to a 
 lakelet barely four miles in circumference. 
 
 Of course the Malabar invaders soon made their way to the new 
 city, and the same weary struggle continued for many generations. 
 
 This mediaeval capital attained its climax of wealth and power in 
 the period between a.d. 1153 and 1240, during the reigns of the 
 mighty King Prakrama Bahu and of his successor, Kirti Nissanga. 
 The former ranks above all others in the love and reverence of 
 the Singhalese, as having been pre-eminent in chivalry, in piety, in 
 wisdom, and in power. He had mastered the various sciences and 
 accomplishments of the age, including medicine, logic, poetry, and 
 music, and the training of the elephant and of the horse. 
 
 His reign, which continued for thirty-three years, began amid 
 civil war, from which his energy and popularity brought him forth 
 ' sole king of Lanka,' ' and secured such peace in his own dominions 
 as enabled him to accomplish an incredible amount of work, while at 
 the same time his warlike nature found means to wage successful war 
 against the kings of Cambodia, Pandya, and Chola (the two latter in 
 Southern India). Each of these had given him cause of offence, for 
 which each was forced to make ample reparation, and all three be- 
 came tributary to Lanka. 
 
 Whatever this large-minded king undertook was carried out on a 
 scale so magnificent as to be only rendered possible by the employ- 
 ment of the unpaid labour of the people. I have already referred to 
 those stupendous irrigation works, including 1,470 tanks, including 
 lakes so great as to be commonly called ' the seas of Prakrama.' 
 Besides these, he restored about as many more which had fallen into 
 1 The ancient name of Ceylon.
 
 POLLAXARUA 385 
 
 disrepair during the prolonged wars, and made or rc[)aired upwards 
 of 4,000 canals and watercourses. 
 
 While thus furnishing his people with an abundant water-supply 
 and securing the means of raising plentiful crops, he built or restored 
 innumerable temples, relic-shrines, and houses for Buddhist priests 
 in every part of the Isle, which was the more remarkable considering 
 the difficulties of communication in those days. 
 
 Amongst other meritorious works enumerated in the national 
 chronicles were the erection of loi dagobas, 476 images of Buddha, 
 and the building of 300 rooms for the reception of images, besides 
 repairing 6,100 such rooms. Besides all the temples which he built, 
 he made 31 rock-temples, with tanks, baths, and gardens for the 
 priests, while for the accommodation of travelling priests he built 
 230 lodgings, with 50 halls for preaching, and 192 rooms in which to 
 offer flowers. He also built 230 halls for the use of strangers. 
 
 At Pollanarua itself everything was done that could enhance the 
 beauty of the city, and very lovely it must have been, rising from 
 the brink of the great lake, which reflected its stately palaces, temples, 
 and dagobas, coated with the cream-coloured cement so like polished 
 marble, and all the gilded spires and cupolas and golden umbrellas. 
 And to right and left of the city lay outstretched a broad expanse 
 of richly cultivated land and verdant pasturage, with groves of flower- 
 ing trees and palms and clumps of tamarinds, casting the coolest of 
 all shade. 
 
 Prakrama encompassed the city with a strong wall, enclosing an 
 area about thirty miles long by twelve in width, and at the four great 
 gates he erected almshouses for the poor and hospitals for the sick, 
 whom he visited in person, giving them the benefit of his own medical 
 skill. 
 
 Within the city were noble streets, with halls for music and danc- 
 ing, schools and libraries, public baths and pleasant gardens. Pra- 
 krama's own palace was seven storeys high, and, according to the 
 chronicles, contained four thousand rooms, supported by hundreds 
 of stone columns, besides outer halls and staircases. 
 
 Strange indeed it seems, to think of so fair a city, after reigning 
 as capital of the Isle for five hundred years, being in its turn 
 abandoned to utter desolation. The only probable solution of the 
 mystery is, that in the course of the incessant wars which ravaged 
 the Isle in the centuries succeeding that of the great king, enemies 
 must have devised means for cutting off the water-supplies by divert- 
 
 c c
 
 386 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 iiig the feeding rivers, and so the whole irrigation system would be 
 destroyed, and the millions whose very existence depended on the 
 rice-crops would thus be suddenly reduced to starvation, and either 
 died of famine or were compelled to abandon a district which could 
 no longer yield them food. 
 
 Once the inhabitants were gone, the downfall of the city would 
 be swift. Legions of white ants would quickly reduce the woodwork 
 to powder, insidious parasitic plants would take root in many a crevice, 
 and rapidly developing into great trees, would rend the walls, and 
 herds of wild elephants would do their part in hastening the downfall 
 of tottering buildings ; then would follow the amazingly rapid growth 
 of thorny jungle, which even in two or three years so effectually over- 
 runs all abandoned land, and here the elephants and too luxuriant 
 vegetation have reigned undisturbed for upwards of six centuries. 
 
 Even the sparse population which remained, contriving to subsist 
 in dependence on the precarious rainfall, were well-nigh swept away 
 by a terrible visitation of small-pox in the first year of the present 
 century. This infliction being deemed the special amusement of 
 one of the goddesses, it is supposed that any attempt to stay its 
 progress would be specially displeasing to her; so no precautions 
 whatever are taken (or rather would not be, were they not made 
 compulsory), and in that year its ravages were such that the great dis- 
 trict of Tamankaduwa, of which Pollanarua is the capital, was literally 
 depopulated, and now only averages five inhabitants to the square 
 mile — 5,000 to 1,000 square miles ; and in all that vast desolate district 
 of 640,000 acres, only about 2,800 acres are now under cultivation ! 
 The people subsist by hunting and chena-farming; the former rapidly 
 leading to the extinction of game, and the latter cruelly destructive 
 of timber. 
 
 Happily for land and people, the days of tank restoration are 
 at hand, and the same good work which has brought new life to 
 Anuradhapura and the great district of Nuwarakalawiya, is about to 
 be wrought in this hungry and thirsty region around Topare, not 
 merely in restoring the eight ancient lakes, sixty of the smaller tanks, 
 several hundred village tanks, and the general system of irrigation 
 canals, but in the still more necessary formation of head-works to 
 regulate the overflow from the rivers in times of flood. 
 
 For it is by these ungoverned outpourings from the great rivers, 
 Mahavelli-Ganga and Amban-Ganga, even more than by the lack of 
 a regular water-supply, that the rice-lands are rendered desolate, and
 
 POT.LANARUA 387 
 
 it will tax the skill of the ablest engineers to avert these oft-recurring 
 dangers. 
 
 At the time of our visit to PoUanarua, the land was suffering from 
 a prolonged drought, the tanks being dryer than they had been for 
 thirty years ; fields and jungle were alike parched and burnt up, even 
 the hardy shrubs all scorched and shrivelled by the fierce sun, and 
 all the tender green of ferns and mosses had utterly vanished, except 
 in favoured patches within reach of some leak in a tank, or near the 
 river banks. For days and days together we scarcely saw a blossom, 
 save the scentless scarlet ixora, whose very loveliness at last became 
 hateful, for it made us hot to look at it, especially as we well knew 
 what colonies of vicious red ants made their home among its 
 blossoms. 
 
 In these seasons of sore drought the people of this district have 
 recourse to sundry charms to obtain rain, one of which is that they 
 clear the jungle from a ridge whereon stands a dagoba, to which they 
 then repair and pour out offerings of milk, which they say invariably 
 produce the desired boon. Apparently they deem it unwise to try 
 this remedy too often ! 
 
 We had suffered considerably in the last few days from the great 
 heat, but all was forgotten now in the delight of finding ourselves 
 in such cool and pleasant quarters, actually on the embankment of 
 the lake, and thus sufficiently raised to command a perfect view, and 
 also to catch every breath of air that rustled through the foliage. It 
 was a joy even to be at rest under the cool shade of wide-spreading 
 trees, looking down on beds of rosy lotus-blossoms, and on humbler 
 blue and white lilies, which floated on the blue waters. 
 
 Though disturbed by the preparations for our coming, many 
 aquatic birds soon returned to their homes in the waving reeds and 
 tall flowering water-grasses, and sometimes a flock of long legged 
 white cranes or of rosy flamingoes, or even a familiar grey heron, 
 would alight and stalk solemnly along the shallows. 
 
 When the sun began to lower we went off to explore the wonders 
 of the silent city, returning to our quarters beside the lake in time to 
 watch the glories of sunset colouring and of the gorgeous afterglow-, 
 till it faded away in the darkness. 
 
 What a standing mystery it is ! What can there be about the 
 horizon to act the part of so wondrous a prism, that, for a few short 
 moments at the outgoing of morning and evening, earth, lake, and 
 sky should thus be bathed in rainbow colours ?
 
 388 Tiro HAPI'Y YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 How beautiful those nights were, with the brilHancy of glittering 
 f-tarlight and the various voices of the forest, which now and again 
 broke the utter stillness — the whirring of night-moths, the rustling 
 of grasses, the chirping of grasshoppers, the croaking of frogs, the 
 querulous yapping of jackals, the hooting of owls, of which there are 
 several varieties, from the beautifully-marked brown wood-owl, and 
 the rich orange-buff screech-owl, which cries like an infant wailing 
 in distress, to a delightful little creature peculiar to Ceylon {Scops 
 viifit4i7/s), which is only six inches long, and has a little feeble cry. 
 It is brown and grey, and has yellow eyes and a horny feather-crest ; 
 it feeds on bats and tiny birds. But the one voice which I did wish 
 to hear was silent, namely, that of the far-famed devil-bird, or Guamala, 
 as the natives call it, whose excruciating cry has been so often 
 described, but whose identity has ever been under dispute. Even Sir 
 Samuel Baker, who says he heard it continually, never succeeded in 
 catching sight of the bird. That cry is sometimes like the shout of 
 a man in distress — a shriek of torture, followed by a gurgling sound 
 as if a victim were being strangled ; then follow piercing screams and 
 convulsive cries agonising to hear, so suggestive are they of murder ; 
 then follows a silence as of death, perhaps broken once more by 
 dismal wails and pitiful cries. 
 
 It is a voice so very eerie that it is said no one can hear it without 
 a shudder, and all natives hold it in superstitious horror, believing it 
 to be a warning of death ; and doubtless this awe has been intensified 
 by the mystery as to what creature utters these horrid sounds. At 
 last, however, Mr. Stephens of Gampola has succeeded in shooting 
 a bird in the very act of emitting these unearthly yells, and the victim 
 proved to be the forest eagle-owl {Bubo Nepalensis), which is known 
 to the Singhalese as Loku Bakanmna, and to the Tamils as Peria 
 Anda. It is a large strong bird of beautiful plumage — another proof 
 that fine feathers do not secure melodious voices ! 
 
 The Singhalese account for a bird being endowed with so 
 agonising a cry by a legend of how a wicked man, being angry with 
 his wife and child, took the child to a wood and murdered it. Then 
 taking some of its flesh, he returned home, and sending his wife 
 out on an errand, he popped the flesh into a curry which she was 
 preparing. Unheeding the child's absence, the woman presently ate 
 of the curry, when the inhuman father told her what he had done. 
 Crazed with horror, the unhappy mother fled to the jungle and there 
 destroyed herself. In her next transmigration her soul passed into a
 
 POLLANARUA 389 
 
 'devil-bird,' which thenceforward has made night hideous with its 
 cries of anguish. 
 
 If night in the forest is beautiful, how entrancing is the delicious 
 freshness of the tropical dawn, when the stars pale in the clear vault 
 of heaven ! Then the hills stand in sombre purple against a 
 primrose-coloured sky, and suddenly the darkness is replaced by a 
 flood of pure dazzling light ; all living things in the forest awaken, 
 and a thousand varying notes blend in one harmonious chorus. It 
 is so odd to hear the deep bass supplied by a booming note not to 
 be distinguished from that of the great monkey, but which is really 
 produced by a most gentle dove. 
 
 How ethereal were the lovely violet hues of the distant mountains 
 in that early dawn, changing so rapidly from purple to pink, and then 
 the mellow glow of the risen sun casting clear dark shadows where a 
 moment before all was even-toned, and bringing out the rich greens 
 of the great trees and of the rank succulent herbage all round the 
 muddy shores of the lake, the ' moist and reedy grass ' fringing the 
 still waters, which form quiet little bays and inlets separated by 
 wooded peninsulas ! 
 
 Our little regiment of coolies, composed of Moors, Hindoos 
 Buddhists, and Veddahs, were camped on the brink of the lake 
 beneath the cool shade of overhanging trees, and the blue smoke of 
 their camp-fires added a picturesque touch to the scene. 
 
 The embankment on which our huts were built, and which is the 
 dam to which the lake owes its existence, is about sixty feet wide on 
 the summit, and about two miles in length. The whole was faced 
 with hewn stone, but the roots of large trees have dislodged the great 
 l)locks, and overthrown this massive masonry. 
 
 We were close to the ruins of Prakrama's audience-hall and lion- 
 throne, marked by a number of dwarf stone pillars and by a solitary 
 finely sculptured lion with curly mane and twisted claws and tail. 
 He is about 7 feet long by 6 feet 6 inches high. We wei-e fortunate 
 in seeing him in the right place, as he was shortly afterwards 
 removed to Colombo, there to grace the museum. His date, in 
 common with that of most of the ruins, must be about a.d. 1153. 
 
 On the farther end of the embankment stands a cyclopcan statue 
 of King Prakrama, sculptured in full relief from a mass of dark rock. 
 He is represented reading an ' ola,' /.«?., a long scroll, and the sculptor 
 has not given him a pleasant expression. The height of the statue 
 is II feet 6 inches. By some accident the upper half of his head
 
 390 Tlf^O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLOM 
 
 was broken and has been replaced rather on one side. The Govern- 
 ment Agent (Sir F. Dickson), who was with us, bade his men climb 
 on to the shoulders of the statue and put it straight. With undis- 
 guised horror they refused to stand on the shoulders of a king, but 
 they climbed up the rock behind him, and with great difficulty con- 
 trived to reach it and do what was needed. 
 
 I found a very attractive spot for a comprehensive sketch at the 
 AVata Dage or round treasure-house, a circular building of red brick 
 on a raised and terraced mound. It is surrounded by a low wall of 
 huge stone slabs, all covered with a sort of diaper pattern of four- 
 leafed flowers, which is quite unique in my experience of Oriental 
 sculpture. Between each slab stands a tall monolithic column with 
 finely sculptured capital. The terrace wall round the mound is all 
 very richly sculptured with rows of grotesque fat men, lions, and 
 lotus blossoms all round it. It is approached by four very handsome 
 stairways, all most elaborately carved, and with very perfect guardian 
 figures, with the usual headdress or canopy of seven-headed serpents. 
 The moonstones at the base of these steps are also in most perfect 
 preservation, with semicircles of geese, elephants, and horses round a 
 central lotus flower. These stones are 7 feet 8 inches in diameter. 
 
 Within the circular building there remain only the mutilated 
 fragments of a sitting image of Buddha, whose head lies on the grass, 
 with stony face upturned to the sky, alike heedless of the gay butter- 
 flies that hover around, and of the white woman from a far-away isle 
 who dares to invade his sanctuary. 
 
 Beside the broken statue lies an oblong stone marked with 
 diamond-shaped holes. A similar stone lies in the outer quadrangle 
 of the 'Temple of the Tooth.' They were probably yoga stones, on 
 which devotees might gaze fixedly to intensify their meditations.' 
 
 The circular brick wall is only about twenty feet in height, but 
 on its summit a noble banyan has established itself, and throws out 
 such a network of great white roots, reaching to the base of the 
 mound, that its roots are in truth as conspicuous as the wide-reaching 
 arms, which were the chosen playground of a large troop of frolic- 
 some monkeys of all ages and sizes, jumping, swinging, chattering, 
 scolding, grimacing, as if they were trying to show off their accom- 
 plishments to the strange invader of their sanctuary. Several had 
 the neatest little babies, which cuddled in the maternal arm, rode on 
 her back, or held on by her long tail, as the case might be. 
 
 ' See Chapter xiii.
 
 - ^ 
 
 <: o
 
 POLLANARUA 391 
 
 The clear blue of the sky forming a background lo the warm rich 
 reds of the brickwork, the white banyan stems and stonework, and 
 the greens of foliage and grass, made a pleasant scene, and presently 
 a solitary priest ascended the steps, and his brown skin and saffron 
 drapery and palm-leaf fan added just the needful touch of yellow 
 light. To the right of the picture rises the Sat-mahal-prasada, or 
 'Palace of .Seven Storeys.' It is a small building in very perfect 
 preservation, but it is only 28 feet 6 inches square at the base, and 
 there is nothing to indicate what it was used for ; possibly a cell for 
 some fiinciful priest. 
 
 Between it and the \Vata Dage lies a very remarkable huge i)lock 
 of stone known as the ' Galpota' or stone book. It measures 28 feet 
 in length by 5 in width, and averages 2 feet 6 inches in depth ; but 
 only the top and the four sides are hewn so as to represent a gigantic 
 book. For some reason unknown. King Kirti Nissanga caused his 
 ' strong men ' to carry this enormous stone all the way from the sacred 
 mountain of Mihintale, a distance of upwards of eighty miles. This 
 is recorded on the stone itself, which ic entirely covered with writing, 
 except that the inscription is encircled with a procession of sacred 
 geese, and at either end a neat little image of Buddha sits cross-legged 
 between two tall elephants, which uplift their trunks and so form a 
 canopy for his protection. 
 
 The inscriptions, which date from about a.d. 1187, are chiefly 
 Oriental adulation of King Kirti Nissanga by his prime minister. 
 After enumerating proofs of his miraculous powers and wisdom, the 
 inscription tells how he reconstructed the embankments of great 
 lakes and watercourses, thus restoring prosperity to the people ; how 
 he got rid of robbers by giving them whatever riches they desired (!) ; 
 how he expelled evil-doers from the monasteries, and provided the 
 priests with food, raiment, lodging, and physic. 
 
 \'ery curious are the details of some of his almsgiving, and also 
 of his care for the prosperity of his own race. We are told how, 
 considering that the continuance of religion and of the sciences de- 
 pended on the royal dynasty, the king sent to the country of Kaalinga 
 {i.e., Orissa in India), whence he himself had come, and caused many 
 princesses of the Soma Surya Wansae {i.e., the Luni-Solar race) to be 
 brought to his court, and he married these royal virgins to his son, 
 and so increased the royal family. 
 
 Then with regard to alms, every year his Majesty, wearing the 
 crown and all royal ornaments, caused himself, his two chief queens,
 
 392 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 and his son and daughter, to be weighed in a balance, and he 
 bestowed five times their united weight of goods on the Buddhist and 
 Brahmin priests, the blind, the lame, the deformed, and other desti- 
 tute and friendless people. ' He quenched the fire of poverty with 
 showers of riches, gold coin, copper, bell-metal, gold, silver, pearls, 
 precious stones, vestments, and jewels.' 'Thus he made the poor 
 happy, and caused a constant supply of rain.' The last allusion to 
 the favour of the gods is one which would eminently appeal to this 
 rice-growing community in a district so subject to drought. 
 
 On the same huge taiilet another inscrij)tion tells of the numerous 
 temples and relic-shrines which he either built or repaired, of the 
 enormous sums he expended in regilding the seventy- two images of 
 Buddha placed by his predecessor in the rock-temples at Dambulla, 
 and restoring the shrines at Anuradhapura, in building almshouses, 
 which he furnished with vessels of gold and silver, and where the 
 poor were provided with abundance of victuals, and how he dedicated 
 his son and daughter to the Sacred Tooth, and subsequently redeemed 
 them by offering in their stead a dagoba of solid gold and other 
 precious objects. 
 
 This very literal reading of a man being worth his weight in gold 
 seems to have commended itself to the Singhalese sovereigns. The 
 same inscription on the rock at Dambulla which records how the 
 great King Prakrama Bahu made and gilded the aforesaid seventy- 
 two statues of Buddha, also tells of his annual donation of five times 
 his own weight in gold and jewels for the relief of the poor. And 
 here at Pollanarua another rock- tablet tells of another king of the 
 Kaalinga dynasty, who, like his predecessor, Kirti Nissanga, annually 
 distributed five times his own weight of gold, precious stones, jewels, 
 and rich vestments for the good of the needy ; and, moreover, for 
 five years relinquished all his royal revenues in order to relieve the 
 people from the distress occasioned by the exactions of former 
 kings. 
 
 Yery special interest attaches to the Delada Maligawa, a temple 
 built for the reception of Buddha's famous tooth. It is thought that 
 the Wata Dage was built for it when it was first brought here from 
 Anuradhapura, for the Mahawanso records how the great Prakrama, 
 arrayed in royal apparel and mounted on an elephant, with a golden 
 umbrella over his head, came with much military pomp to return 
 thanks for his victories at the shrine of the Holy Tooth. This second 
 temple seems to have been erected in its honour a few years later by
 
 POLLylNARUA 393 
 
 King Kirti Nissanga. After the lapse of seven centuries it remains 
 in wonderful preservation, the sculptures on the walls and the very 
 remarkable pillars round the inner shrine being almost perfect. 
 
 I found another very pictorial subject in the ruins of the great 
 Jetawanarania Temple, with a foreground of exceedingly ornamental 
 pillars and admirably sculptured stones overgrown with tangled 
 creepers, while beyond these in the near distance stands the Kiri or 
 Milk-white Dagoba, so called from the beautifully smooth white 
 chunam with which the whole huge building was once coated. And 
 very well it must have looked when crowned with its- gilded tee ox 
 symbolic umbrella. The chunam and the gilding have disappeared, 
 otherwise it is almost perfect, though large trees have contrived to 
 root themselves in many a fissure, and veil the now naked brick, or 
 rather tile-work (for the building material here is all tiles), with 
 delicate foliage and a network of roots and branches. 
 
 The great Jetawanarama Vihara is likewise almost shorn of its coat- 
 ing of once dazzling chunam, but the rich warm colours of its crumbling 
 brickwork, standing in strong light and dark shade against a blue 
 sky, and all softened by the cool greens of many a tree and creeping 
 plant, are certainly more attractive to an artist than the temple could 
 have been in the days of its glory. A stairway of the usual type, but 
 of which each stone is twenty feet in length and very finely sculptured, 
 leads up to the eastern entrance between two polygonal turrets, which, 
 like the rest of the walls, are about eighty feet in height. 
 
 Against the western wall, focing the rising sun, stands a huge and 
 now hideous image of Buddha about 60 feet in height, which when 
 coated with chunam must have resembled polished marble, but is 
 now only broken brickwork. From the fiict that some very low 
 windows seem to have been the only means of lighting this shrine, 
 Sir James Tennent infers that the roof was perhaps constructed on 
 the same principle as that of a pagoda on the Irawaddi River known 
 as the ' Cave of Ananda,' in which a similar statue of Buddha is 
 mysteriously illuminated by means of an opening in the roof, unseen 
 by the worshippers, but so contrived as to throw a full ray of light 
 only on the head and shoulders of the image, thus forming a very 
 effective halo, in striking contrast with the gloom of the temple. 
 
 I spoke of the Kiri ]3agoba as 'huge.' It is really about 100 feet 
 high, with a diameter of about 70 feet, which is pretty well for a mass 
 of solid brickwork, but it is effectually dwarfed by the Rankot or 
 Golden-spire Dagoba (which is also called Ruan-welle-saye, 'the
 
 394 TlVO HAPPY YEARS IN CFA'LON 
 
 place of golden dust'). This gigantic pile is 200 feet high, and about 
 186 feet in diameter. It is surrounded by eight small shrines with 
 conical roofs. 
 
 There are several other dagobas of the same type, and innumer- 
 able sculptured pillars, which alone remain to suggest vanished 
 glories, for the buildings which they supported have wholly disap- 
 peared. Near the so-called fort were the royal baths. In the centre 
 of the 'kumara pokuna,' the king's own bathing pond— a stone-lined 
 tank — there is a circular stone on which the king sat and submitted 
 to the delicate attentions of bathers ; for one of the penalties of 
 monarchy was that he had not even the privilege of washing himself. 
 Three stone lions which lie close by are supposed to have sup[)orted 
 this ' bath-chair.' 
 
 But it is useless to attempt to describe the numerous ruins which 
 lie so thickly scattered all through the jungle, which now overspreads 
 the whole of what was once so great a city — mounds of brickwork, 
 broken columns, an inexhaustible supply of sculptured stones, geese, 
 elephants, lions, horses, lotus-blossoms, and grotesque figures, with 
 here and there fallen images lying prostrate on the earth. 
 
 Now temples and palaces are utterly deserted save by the beasts 
 of the forest, which find in these silent sanctuaries the stillness they 
 love, a secure retreat, and deep cool shade where they can make 
 their dens and rear their young undisturbed. Bears, leopards, and 
 porcupines share the inner shrines with owls and flocks of evil-smell- 
 ing bats. Radiant peacocks and emerald-green parroquets, orioles, 
 barbets, and many other birds of gay plumage, flasli athwart the sun- 
 light from the shelter of dark foliage, and herds of wild deer couch 
 fearlessly beside the broken idols with the calm passionless faces 
 which so little heed their own downfall. 
 
 In one ruined shrine I collected a handful of porcupine quills as 
 a memento of the spot. These creatures conceal themselves so 
 effectually in the daytime, that even in the districts where they 
 abound many people have never seen one. They are often captured 
 at night by the simple stratagem of digging a deep ditch with per- 
 pendicular sides, and narrowing gradually towards one end. The 
 porcupine enters the ditch in search of food, and walks on till he 
 sticks fast, and can by no possibility turn round, as his quills stick 
 in the mud ; then the poor ' fretful porcupine ' falls an easy victim. 
 His flesh, which resembles that of a nice young pig, is prized as a 
 great delicacy.
 
 C -a 
 
 3
 
 POLLANARUA 395 
 
 To me the slirine of greatest interest was the Gal Vihara, which 
 lies to the north of the city, a quite unique rock-temple, hollowed 
 in a mass of dark-brown gneiss rock ; from the colour of wliich the 
 temple is also called Kulagalla, 'the black rock.' From this rock 
 three gigantic figures have been sculptured in almost full relief. One 
 represents Buddha sitting in contemplation in the usual attitude, 
 arms and legs alike folded in complete repose. This image is 
 15 feet high, and sits on a pedestal 5 feet deep by 18 feet wide. 
 The background is all most elaborately sculptured, and all as sharp 
 and clean-cut as though it were the work of yesterday — not a trace 
 of weathering after the lapse of seven centuries. 
 
 Then comes the rock-hewn temple, which is built up in front and 
 adorned with columns, but within it is an altar on which is another 
 sedent image of Buddha, all hewn from the rock. It is only about 
 half the size of the image outside, but the whole interior of the shrine 
 is elaborately decorated. Unfortunatel}', modern piety has renovated 
 ancient art with grievously crude colours. 
 
 The temple is approached by rock-hewn steps, and on either side 
 the rock has been smoothed so as to form two inclined planes, one 
 of which, 18 feet high by 13 feet 9 inches in width, is covered with 
 a long inscription in the ancient Pali character, which, however, is 
 not specially interesting. 
 
 Next to this, standing at the head of a huge recumbent image of 
 Buddha, is an upright statue, 23 feet high, representing Ananda, 
 Buddha's favourite disciple, with his arms crossed on his breast. 
 He stands on a circular pedestal, edged with the conventional 
 lotus-leaf, which generally marks the throne of Buddha ; hence 
 this image has generally been mistaken for Buddha himself, but 
 wise authorities have decided otherwise, chiefly because the Maha- 
 wanso records the formation of this rock-temple by King Prakrama, 
 and describes only two images of Gautama, one sitting, the other re- 
 clining. All three wear the robe so as to leave the right arm and 
 shoulder bare. 
 
 The recumbent statue is 46 feet in length, and represents Buddha 
 as in the dreamless sleep of Nirvana, his head resting on the right 
 hand, on the palm of which is engraved a lotus-blossom, and the 
 hand resting on a bolster. The attitude is' that of perfect repose. 
 The difference of stature between Buddha in contemplation and 
 Buddha in his last rest is very striking. Eastern symbolism always 
 seems to supi)ose corporeal growth in the holy dead, hence the neces-
 
 396 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 sity for graves of preternatural length, as in the case of that of Eve 
 at Jeddah, which measures at least 60 feet.' 
 
 I fear that the mere description of all this may not sound very 
 impressive, but it certainly is so in reality, and so I felt it to be while 
 myself sitting on another great mass of dark chocolate-coloured rock, 
 separated from the temple by a belt of grass and shrubs, and looking 
 above and beyond it to a background of silent solemn forest. One 
 or two brethren of the yellow robe hovered about the door of the 
 inner temple, but the throng of worshippers who in bygone ages 
 bowed before these gigantic idols has passed away ; yet there these 
 remain, heedless as ever of the coming and going of men, and of all 
 their joys and sorrows. 
 
 To this great capital came embassies from distant lands, even 
 from China, chiefly to do homage to the various objects of Buddhist 
 worship. There is, however, evidence of very early commercial 
 intercourse with China, chiefly gathered from Chinese books of ex- 
 tracts from ancient records now lost, showing how Chinese fleets 
 came to Galle to trade. Swords and musical instruments were among 
 the things imported to Ceylon, and in later days, a.d. 1266, Chinese 
 soldiers served in the army of Prakrama III. 
 
 But in 1405 King Wijaya-Bahu VI., who seems to have adopted 
 the Hindoo faith, tyrannised over the Buddhists and maltreated 
 strangeis, plundering their ships. Among those thus treated, a 
 Chinese embassy bringing gifts to the shrine of Buddha were 
 treacherously waylaid, and escaped with difficulty. Nevertheless, 
 when, in 1407, the Emperor of China sent his great general, Ching- 
 lio, with sixty-two junks and a strong military force, on an embassy 
 to Sumatra, Java, Cambodia, Siam, and other places, Ceylon was in- 
 cluded, the embassy arriving there in 1408. 
 
 Wijaya-Bahu, however, endeavoured treacherously to capture his 
 
 ' This great image is, however, a mere pigmy as compared with some in other 
 Buddhist countries, notably at Bamian in Afghanistan, where, on the road between 
 Cabul and Baikh, the early Buddhists excavated monasteries and rock-cells literally by 
 the thousand in the high cliffs of conglomerate, some of which have been fashioned 
 into the likeness of gigantic images of Buddha. One of these, which was measured 
 with the theodolite by the Hon. M. G. Talbot, R.E., was found to be 173 feet in 
 height. Another, also a standing figure, was proved to be 120 feet high. A sitting 
 figure is 30 feet, and of two others now in ruins, one must have been about 60 feet 
 high. All these statues were originally either gilt or covered with metal. Burmah 
 also glories in great images of Buddha, one near Moulmain being fully 120 feet long. 
 Tt is built of brick, and represents Buddha in Nirvana. In Cliiiia and Japan also he 
 is represented on a colossal scale.
 
 POLLANARUA 397 
 
 visitors and to plunder and burn their ships. The tables were 
 turned, and he and his queen, his children, his officers of state, and 
 the Tooth were carried back to China, where the Tooth was long kept 
 in a monastery at Nankin. 
 
 The Emperor of China, having compassion on his prisoners, 
 desired the officers of state to elect ' the wisest of the family ' as their 
 king. This honour was conferred on Pula-ko-ma Bazac Lacha, which 
 is evidently Chinese for Prakrama Bahu Rajah. All the prisoners 
 were sent home, and a Chinese envoy was sent to invest him with 
 regal power as a vassal of China, and thenceforth annual tribute was 
 paid till A.D. 1459, when it suddenly ceased. 
 
 Now the intercourse between the nations seems to be limited to 
 the visits of traders, who explore certain caves on the coast in search 
 of the glutinous nests used in the manufacture of soup, and who 
 trade in the sea-slugs or bkhe-de-mer which are turned to similar 
 account. The former, however, form a very small item. From a 
 recent table of exports from Ceylon to China, I see the total value 
 of edible birds' nests for the year was only 40 rupees, that of bkhe- 
 de-mer was 27,300 rupees. Sharks' fins were valued at 13,667 rupees. 
 Fish, dried and salted, and fish fins and bones, were 18,327 rupees, 
 and birds' feathers amounted to 1,240 rupees. 
 
 We made the very most of several long days at Pollanarua, and 
 then abandoned our peaceful, pleasant camp, with much regret. A 
 lovely morning ride of about nine miles brought us to beautiful Lake 
 Minery, halting on our way at Giritale, a charming little lake, with 
 massive stone embankment and some sculptured stones. It has 
 the usual surroundings of fine trees, and view of near wooded hills 
 and blue distant ranges. We had previously visited Sevamputti, 
 another of these minor tanks, beyond which lies Gunner's Quoin, 
 one of the principal hills in the neighbourhood. There the scene 
 had a touch of human interest from the lonely watch-huts on the 
 brink of the swampy ground, mere rudely-thatched platforms of 
 boughs raised on high poles, wherein some lonely watcher kept 
 ceaseless guard to scare marauding animals from the crops. By day 
 he shouts and pulls long lines of clacking rattles, and by night he 
 kindles fires for the same purpose. 
 
 The great lake at Minery was made about a.d. 275, and owes its 
 existence to King Maha Sen, who, as we learnt at Anuradhapura, 
 atoned for his early apostasy from Buddhism by most energetic con- 
 struction of temples and of tanks for the irrigation of temple-lands. 
 It is said that Minery was designed to irrigate twenty thousand fields
 
 398 TH'O HAP FY YEARS IN CFA'LOX 
 
 belonging to the Jetawanarama \ihara at Pollanarua. In order to 
 form it, he diverted the waters of the Kara-Ganga (now called 
 Amban-Ganga) near Matale, which is distant about forty miles, and 
 formed a great canal by which to convey them to Minery, Besides 
 this, he constructed sixteen other tanks, including that of Gantalawe 
 (now called Kanthalay) near Trincomalee. 
 
 So great and numerous were his works, that the people deemed 
 him godlike, and believed that he received supernatural aid ; yet 
 strange to say, though all his works were beneficent, yet when, after 
 his death, a pestilence swept the land, they commenced to worship 
 him as an incarnation of the Indian war-god Kataragama — an angry 
 deity to be propitiated, chiefly with a view to the healing of malig- 
 nantly inflicted bodily suffering (see page 464). 
 
 In the very picturesque village of Minery a humble mud-hut is 
 the temple of the deified king, whose iron sword, with a square hilt, 
 peculiarly decorated with small brass chains, is treasured as a 
 precious relic. In presence of his image there is a holy stone, about 
 two feet square, let into a large one for greater security. To this 
 temple persons accused of any crime, or having any cause of dispute 
 with their neighbours, repair, and having kept solemn vigil for a night 
 in an open shed near the temple, deposit on the stone a fanam, 
 which is a very small coin, equal to the sixteenth part of a rupee, and 
 swear their most solemn oaths,' with the firm conviction that perjury 
 would involve death within six months. In the village we also 
 saw a curious circular thatched building all closed up, in which, we 
 were told, various sacred relics were stored, including an arrow once 
 used by King Maha Sen. 
 
 We had heard a rumour of the existence of a place of exceeding 
 sanctity, known as the Grove of the Tank Gods, and were exceedingly 
 anxious to see it, but the people were unwilling to lead us to it. 
 The headman declared he could not take us, as it would require 
 three months of purification ere he dared approach the spot with 
 necessary offerings ! However, having gone off by myself in the 
 evening for a long walk, with only a villager for my guide, I dis- 
 covered this holy of holies, to his great disgust and my own un- 
 bounded satisf;\ction. 
 
 And such a poor, contemptible little place as it is ! simply a small 
 space cleared in the dense vegetation on the embankment of the 
 lake, and round this are ranged broken fragments of images and a 
 
 ' As_our ancestors did on the Ontli-stonc of lona. See ' In the Hebrides,' p. 70.
 
 POLLANARTA 
 
 399 
 
 variety of sculptured stones, the body of a headless lion, an odd 
 hunchback figure minus legs, a broken image with a seven-headed 
 
 snake-canopy, a rather graceful female figure, and a good many 
 others, all broken, and propped up with heaps of fragments. Two only, 
 namely, the hunchback and the lady, are unusual, and are supposed
 
 400 TJJ'O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLOX 
 
 to represent INIaha Sen and his wife. Is it not strange to think that 
 the descendants of the race who constructed these grand tanks and 
 built these splendid cities and temples can rise to no loftier con- 
 ception than collecting broken fragments of images in some shady 
 corner, which is thenceforth invested with sanctity and mystery, and 
 only approached in trembling dread ? 
 
 In the same walk I came on several queer little holy places in the 
 forest — mere circles of small stones, within which were deposited a 
 multitude of offerings of rude red pottery, very varied in shape, some 
 being simply water -jars, but the majority resembling the tee on the 
 summit of a relic-shrine. I never saw anything of this sort anywhere 
 else ; but a few days later, near the tank at Kanthalay, we came on a 
 sandy circle beneath great trees, where red earthenware votive-lamps 
 stood ready for lighting at night. Some of these were such neat 
 little curios that I felt sorely tempted to appropriate one, but, 
 happily, refrained from such sacrilegious theft. It is certainly 
 remarkable that the very monkeys respect those unprotected accumu- 
 lations of crockery. A sudden impulse on the part of one of the 
 numerous troops would make short work of the whole. 
 
 One of these circles was guarded by a familiar spirit in the form 
 of a splendid lizard, about eighteen inches long, a chameleon, I 
 suppose, as he rapidly changed colour with indignation at my 
 intrusion. To begin with, he was bright green with a crimson head ; 
 then he turned brown and yellow, and afterwards appeared of a 
 rich olive colour. After a while he turned black, to frighten me, I 
 suppose, as he stood puffing like a little demon and raising his 
 dorsal spines. When he saw I was not bent on mischief, he once 
 more assumed his green robe and ruby cap, and seemed satisfied. 
 Another of these harmless lizards has a red-and-orange pouch under 
 his chin, and small horns which give him a most demoniacal appear- 
 ance. They love to lie basking in the noonday sun. 
 
 A family of screaming, flying foxes returning to roost in the trees 
 overhead were well in keeping with the scene, and as evening drew 
 on, the large green frogs in the lake commenced their night concert 
 of croaking. 
 
 The quaintness of the aforesaid circles was greatly enhanced by 
 their surroundings of huge vines — climbing plants of various sorts — 
 originally mere twisted tendrils, which have swung from branch to 
 branch, thence hanging in huge festoons, till the whole forest is thus 
 linked together by this intricate living cordage. Sometimes the
 
 POLLANARUA 401 
 
 beautiful treacherous creepers crush to death the trees and boughs 
 around which they have twined, and the stem decays and crumbles 
 away, leaving the great coils, now grown into hard wood, old and 
 self-supporting, twisting spirally in every direction, like legions of 
 writhing snakes, and forming a very distinctive feature in the under- 
 growth. One of these creepers ' bears a gigantic bean, always sug- 
 gestive of Jack-in-the-beanstalk. Its pods, which are from four to 
 six feet in length, and about four inches wide, are divided into sections, 
 each containing a handsome chocolate-coloured bean, which, when 
 hollowed out, makes a neat match-box. 
 
 Another of these climbing plants, which mounts to the top of 
 high trees, bears large clusters of yellow flowers, which are succeeded 
 by prickly pods containing pretty, smooth grey seeds, so round that 
 they might almost be used as marbles. 
 
 The temporary bungalows prepared for us at Minery were less 
 fascinating in point of situation than our last camp, being farther 
 from the lake and much nearer the village. They were, however, 
 near a very picturesque stream, in which groups of natives bathed 
 with infinite enjoyment within the shade of pleasant trees all matted 
 with large-leaved creepers, forming ideal ' green-rooms.' Graceful 
 tree-ferns grew beneath the tall palms and overhung the stream, and 
 the luxuriant elephant creeper, with its large heart-shaped leaves and 
 lilac blossoms, formed the loveliest screen, mingling with the beautiful 
 Granadilla, starred with passion-flowers and with the large green fruits 
 which, wath sugar and milk, are very pleasant food. Handsome 
 basket-ferns had niched themselves on the boughs of many trees, 
 from which also hung divers orchids. 
 
 I have already mentioned that even now in a rainy season, Lake 
 Minery fills so as to have a circumference of fully twenty miles. At 
 the time of our visit the waters had contracted to about a third of 
 that size, so not only was the hewn stone-work of the great embank- 
 ment all uncovered, but promontories and islets, which then rise 
 charmingly from the waters, were all high and dry. The said 
 embankment is about a mile and a half in length, about 200 
 feet wide at the base, and about 60 feet high. The view thence, 
 looking to the mountain ranges of Matala and Kandy, greatly resembles 
 that of the Cuchullin Hills in Skye as seen from Ross-shire, though 
 the latter could not show such a foreground of fine timber. 
 
 ' The F.>i1nda piirs(rl/i<i , called by the .Siiigli;ilcse the Maha-pus-wucl, or great 
 hollow climber. 
 
 D D
 
 402 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 ^Ve had been told that what should really be the bed of the lake 
 was bordered with firm, springy turf, on which horses can canter 
 safely, but our experience was of a soft, muddy shore, very bad 
 riding ground, and in places all undermined and thrown up into soft 
 hillocks, as if an army of moles had been at work : this was due to 
 the boring of huge earthworms. 
 
 ]iut this rich, juicy grass forms delightful pasture, and the swampy 
 ground about this lake used to be one of my brother's favourite 
 hunting-grounds. Then herds of elephants and ungainly, often 
 savage, bufliiloes (the latter perhaps numbering a hundred or more) 
 would come to enjoy the delight of wallowing in the thick, soft mud 
 and long grass. But since cheap guns and gunpowder have placed 
 weapons of destruction in the hands of natives as well as foreigners, 
 the harassed, over-hunted survivors have disappeared to forests yet 
 more remote, and now the extensive pasture-grounds here and at 
 I'ollanarua, and around all the great tanks, are frequented by very 
 large herds of domestic buffaloes and black cattle brought over from 
 the mainland via Manaar. 
 
 In some places the swampy shores of the lake are edged with 
 cable-rattans, which one would naturally suppose to be bamboos, but 
 which are really members of the palm family — Calamus — long slim 
 canes which grow to a length of a hundred feet or more,' climbing to 
 the tops of the highest trees, and all armed with hooked thorns and 
 interwoven so as to form an impenetrable mass. This grows to the 
 very brink, where rank grass borders an expanse of soft dark mud, 
 forming a treacherous crust on which the unwary treads, and sinks 
 through into deep slime and decaying vegetable matter, a mud-bath 
 delightful to the wild elephants, who love to smear their whole bodies 
 with it, and so are protected against mosquitoes. 
 
 The apparent extent of the lake is much diminished by the luxun- 
 ant growth of the lotus, with its tall, artistically untidy leaves and 
 great rosy blossoms ; but here and there lies a reach of very still 
 water, a calm mirror reflecting the pure blue of heaven, and on which 
 
 1 Teiinant mentions having seen a specimen 250 feel long and an inch in diameter 
 without a single irregularity, and no appearance of foliage other than the bunch of 
 feathery leaves at the extremity. In the southern forests, where it grows most 
 luxuriantly, these slender canes are used by the natives in the construction of light 
 suspension foot-bridges, consisting of a frail woven platform, with a rattan hand-rail, 
 swaying in such a manner as sorely tries the nerves of any European who finds himself 
 obliged to cross a stream on so frail a roadway (the stream perhaps roaring in a ravine 
 a hundred feet below).
 
 POLLANARUA 403 
 
 float the creamy cups of white hhes — an image of peace, marred, 
 however, by ugly suggestions of scaly monsters swimming languidly 
 to and fro among the lovely lilies. 
 
 These horrid crocodiles (the largest of lizards, and oh, how unlike 
 their dainty little cousins !) lie basking on the dry mud, looking so 
 like boughs of fallen trees that it is quite startling to see them glide 
 into the water as one draws near — indeed, I often felt rather nervous 
 as I made my way on foot through the low brush and tall grasses 
 which fringe these lagoons, lest I might inadvertently stumble over 
 one and awaken him from his noonday sleep. One snap from those 
 enormous jaws would be a remembrance not quickly forgotten, even 
 supposing one got away. I had a recollection of hearing of one, 
 measuring 17^ feet in length, which swallowed a native whole, barring 
 his head and one hand, which it had previously bitteh off. It was 
 killed on the following day, and the remains of the man's body were 
 found inside of it. 
 
 These brutes seize their prey and drag it under water to drown it> 
 and then eat it when hungry. But they are not at all particular as 
 to what meat they devour, and being cannibals are always ready to 
 feast on the carcase of their nearest relation who has been shot and 
 left on the shore. They vary in size from new-born babies just 
 hatched by sun-heat from the sixty to eighty eggs which the mother 
 buried in the sand, to full-grown reptiles, perhaps eighteen feet in 
 length. Strange to say, those which inhabit tanks liable to dry up in 
 summer have the power of hibernating, and bury themselves in the 
 mud, which dries over them, and there they lie torpid till the next 
 rainy season reawakens them. These never grow larger than about 
 eight feet. With regard to longevity, in the case of one recently 
 captured, scientists decided, from certain developments of horny 
 growth, that it must be fully three hundred years old. 
 
 One peculiarity of these very unpleasant creatures is, that in the 
 course of their long lives they renew their sixty-eight long sharp teeth 
 several times, so that even in extreme old age those appallingly 
 strong jaws are always well furnished for offensive warfare. ^Vhen 
 they have something to eat afloat, you sec only their noses and 
 foreheads above water, but as soon as they sec that they arc observed 
 down they drop to the bottom. 
 
 Often they lie embedded in mud among tall reeds and water- 
 grasses, and often only the (juivering of these betrays their presence.
 
 404 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 On land they waddle slowly, but once they take to the water they 
 prove swift swimmers. 
 
 To do them justice, they are most diligent scavengers, rejoicing 
 in every sort of decayed animal matter, whether fish, flesh, or fowl. 
 Nevertheless, their numbers are in excess of even this need ; and 
 since it is so very desirable to find an incentive for thinning the ranks 
 of these terribly prolific and dangerous monsters (which in the 
 northern lakes, near Mullaitivu, literally swarm), it is satisfactory to 
 know that, although no use has as yet been discovered for their 
 horrid-looking scaly backs, the belly skin has a high commercial 
 value, being the finest, strongest, softest, and most duralile of all 
 leathers, and is greatly prized for the manufacture of travelling-bags, 
 portmanteaus, boots and shoes, pocket-books, &c. 
 
 The skin must be removed in as large and clean a piece as 
 possible, without any tear or cut ; then it must be steeped in strong 
 brine, and afterwards well rubbed with salt and alum, and then 
 forwarded to England in a secure packing-case, 'i'he tanning is 
 done in London. The value of a skin is chiefly determined by its 
 width. Sportsmen who have sent consignments to London say that 
 they have received i8i-., 20s., and 26s. apiece for them, so that 
 crocodile-hunting is now practically useful in more ways than the 
 mere destruction of dangerous animals. 
 
 More agreeable denizens of the waters are sundry kinds of fish, 
 which are good and abundant. The natives catch them with nets 
 and in trap-baskets of bamboo wickerwork rather like lobster-pots, 
 much wider at the base than at the top. The fisherman dexterously 
 drops one of these over a fish as it lies in a muddy shallow, and then 
 inserting a hand through a hole at the top, captures the fish and 
 drops him into a creel slung by his side. The best of these is the 
 ' lola,' wliich is rather like a very large ungainly trout, but is con- 
 sidered excellent. 
 
 Once more we took the load, or rather what the fine old village 
 chief who led the way on foot was pleased to call the path, sometimes 
 along the dry bed of rocky streams, passing as best the horses could 
 under or over fallen trees, then through parched jungle, all burnt up 
 with the drought, except the scarlet ixora ; even the great tree cactii 
 and bare knotted ropes of giant lianas looking more weird than 
 ever without their accustomed veiling of delicate foliage. 
 
 At last, after four hours of this slow, hot march, we suddenly 
 emerged on the high-road, with telegraph posts and all other proofs
 
 POLLAXARUA 405 
 
 of a return to civilised life, and found ourselves at the village of Gal- 
 Oya, where a most wretched mud-hut was dignified with the name 
 of a Government rest-house. There we spent a broiling day, and 
 repeated the programme on the following day in the rest-house at 
 Alutoya. The third day brought us to the margin of the great 
 ancient tank of Kanthalay, which is apparently about as large as 
 Minery, but with a more deeply indented shore-line. I had to ex- 
 plore alone, my companions being too thoroughly exhausted by the 
 great heat. 
 
 This also is a very pretty scene — a great ruined embankment of 
 huge cut stones all overgrown with fine old trees ; an enormous 
 pile of hewn blocks marking the site of the ruined sluice, masses 
 of dark chocolate-coloured rock, dreamy ranges of far distant 
 hills, and the calm lake reflecting all the beauties of earth and sky. 
 Not a sound to break the stillness save the occasional shrill 
 cry of passing wild duck or other water-fowl. Now and again a flash 
 of lovely colour as a dainty kingfisher or some other fairy of the bird- 
 world flew by. Shortly after that date, however, this tank was 
 effectually restored, and though the people were very slow in profit- 
 ing by the boon, it is now a centre of extensive cultivation and of a 
 flourishing population. 
 
 The lake, as I have mentioned, was originally formed by King 
 Maha Sen about a.d. 275, but it, and the great feeding canal con- 
 necting it with Minery, were practically remade by Prakrama Bahu 
 about 1 153, forming part of that vast series of navigable waters 
 known as the Seas of Prakrama. (I think I have mentioned that he 
 is .said to have constructed 1,407 tanks, and to have repaired 1,395.) 
 Prakrama's great canal is believed to have carried its water-supply 
 twenty-four miles farther, to irrigate the once fertile plains of 
 Tamblegam, close to Trincomalee. But, in some time of over- 
 whelming flood, these plains were transformed to a great lake, whose 
 waters forced a passage to the sea, and then, in turn, received the 
 tribute of the great ocean in an influx of salt water. 
 
 Once admitted, it has never again been possible to exclude the 
 sea, so that Tamblegam is now a large, brackish lake swarming with 
 fish, but chiefly notable for its immense beds of small semi-trans- 
 parent oysters, about six inches in diameter, and very flat. They 
 are largely used in China as a substitute for glass in ornamental 
 windows, so many are exported thither, and many more are burnt as 
 yielding peculiarly fine lime for bctcl-chewers. So wonderfully are
 
 406 TIJ'O HAPPY YEARS IN CF.YLON 
 
 creatures adapted for their varying conditions of existence, that these 
 oysters flourish only in brackish water, and serious mortality results 
 when either fresh or salt water predominates, as happens in season of 
 flood or drought. 
 
 We passed this wide, glassy lake on the following day, on our 
 way from Kanthalay to Trincomalee (a distance of twenty-six miles), 
 the latter a very beautiful spot, which was destined to prove the 
 farthest point of this expedition, and where our stay was considerably 
 prolonged owing to the Bishop's very serious illness. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 TRINCOMALEE — SAAMI ROCK 
 
 Trincomalee Harbour — Fort Austenberg— Fort Frederick — The Saami Rock — Birds — 
 Hot springs— Palmyra-palms — The Lily shore. 
 
 I SUPPOSE that, with the exception of Rio in Brazil and Sydney in 
 Australia, few of the world's harbours excel Trincomalee in beauty 
 and security. 
 
 So perfectly is it land-locked that, as we stood on the high 
 ramparts of Fort Austenberg, looking down on the inner harbour, on 
 whose clear, green waters floated several British men-of-war, it was 
 scarcely possible to believe that this was indeed an arm of that sea 
 which lay wrapped in purple gloom beyond a wide expanse of dark 
 palmyra-palms. 
 
 One of the officers had kindly provided for me a shelter from sun 
 and rain by spreading a thick matting of palm-leaves over one of the 
 eml)rasures, and as I sat there hour after hour sketching that beautiful 
 panorama, I saw nothing of the passage by which these vessels had 
 entered this calm haven from the great outer ocean, and which is 
 protected by a reef stretching far out to sea, forming a perfect break- 
 water. My attention was called to the fact that, so deep are these 
 placid waters, large vessels can lie so close inshore as to discharge 
 their cargo without the use of boats, their yard-arms actually pro- 
 jecting over the wharf. I was told (but whether true or not I cannot 
 say) that the depth is really so great that it has never been fathomed, 
 which gives rise to a theory that this harbour is the crater of a sub- 
 merged volcano.
 
 THE SAAMl ROCK AT TKINCO.M Al.KK 
 (Worship at Sunset.)
 
 TRTNCOMALFK^SAAMI ROCK 407 
 
 More tempting swimming-baths could scarcely be imagined than 
 some of the sheltered inlets of this deep, calm sea-lake ; but, alas ! 
 even here danger sometimes lurks in the form of venturesome 
 ground- sharks, and there is a sad tradition of how once, when a 
 party of soldiers were bathing below the fort, their comrades on 
 shore perceived the dim form of a large shark rising in pursuit of a 
 lad who had just taken a header into the depths. All unconscious 
 of danger, he rose cheerily to the surface, but a moment later a cry 
 of agony rent the air as the lad disappeared, and the waters were 
 reddened with his life-blood. Quick as thought a soldier dived at 
 the very spot, and quickly reappeared, bringing the poor young 
 fellow's head and shoulders — the body having been bitten in two by 
 the shark, who escaped safely with the lower half, and was never 
 seen again, though many days were devoted to the attempt to capture 
 him. 
 
 Right below me lay the Dockyard, the Naval Stores Depot, and 
 the Admiralty. Not the shipping only, but also charmingly wooded 
 isles lay mirrored in that quiet inland lake; while beyond the white 
 sands of the farther shore, red-tiled houses, embowered in pleasant 
 gardens, indicated the direction of a town with some eleven thousand 
 inhabitants, stretching round a horse-shoe-shaped bay, the entrance 
 to which is guarded by two rocky headlands, on the nearest of which, 
 overshadowed by grand old trees, stands the Government Agent's 
 house ' (a spot endeared to us all by the recollection of the 
 sympathetic and considerate hospitality which there enfolded us in a 
 time of grave anxiety.^ 
 
 The farther point of the horse-shoe is a bold peninsula rising from 
 the ocean in a sheer precipice about four hundred feet in height, and 
 thence sloping gently towards the shore, with which it is connected 
 by a long flat neck of grassy sand. Fort Frederick by which name 
 this fortified crag is known to Europeans, guards the outer harbour, 
 and is the military headquarters. To the natives, however, this bold 
 headland is still, as it has been from time immemorial, the Saami (or, 
 as it would be pronounced in India, Swami) Rock, or Rock of God, 
 sacred to the worship of Eiswarama, The Almighty God. 
 
 (It is said the original name of this place was Tirukkonatha- 
 malai, i.e., 'the Mountain of Holy Konathar,' whoever he may have 
 been. 
 
 ' The seat of the Government Agency was shortly afterwards removed to Batticaloa. 
 - Owing to the Bishop's serious illness.
 
 4o8 Tiro HAPPY YEARS LY CFA'LON 
 
 Nothing has struck me more forcibly in the course of my travels 
 than the fact of how often the people living in a place take no interest 
 whatever, and probably ignore the existence, of some local custom or 
 legend which to the traveller is the point of chief interest in the 
 district. 
 
 This I found to be emphatically the case at Trincomalee. Many 
 years ago I had been told by Mr. Forbes Leslie that he had here 
 witnessed a strikingly picturescjue form of aboriginal worship, so one 
 of my first inquiries on arriving in the district was whether the 
 ancient worship on the rock was still carried on. I was assured on 
 all hands that it was entirely given up. 
 
 However, on the very evening of our arrival at Fort Frederick, a 
 natural instinct led me past the old Dutch burial-ground, with its 
 moss-grown graves overshadowed by flowering surya-trees, to the 
 brink of the highest precipice, which in itself is so very grand that I 
 determined to lose no time in securing a picture of it. 
 
 So thither I wended my way at daybreak on Monday, September 
 29th,' returning in the afternoon to colour my morning's pencil 
 sketch. Just as I was finishing my work, or rather was compelled to 
 halt for the evening in order to watch the marvellous loveliness of 
 the sunset lights and colours which flooded the wide sea and rocks 
 with opal tints of dreamy beauty, through which one by one the stars 
 began to glimmer, I observed that first one, then another and another 
 native, both men and women, were taking up positions on the crags, 
 each carrying either a bunch of fruit or a chatty of milk or water. 
 
 Ere long about forty had assembled, including one who acted the 
 part of priest. He was clothed with scanty saffron-coloured cloth, 
 and had a string of large black beads round his head. He stood on 
 the utmost verge of the crag, and the worshippers, having laid at his 
 feet their offerings of cocoa-nuts, lovely cocoa-palm blossoms, betel 
 leaves, bunches of plantains, flowers, coins, small baskets of grain, or 
 whatever else they had to give, clustered around wherever they could 
 find a footing on the rock or the slippery grass while the priest 
 performed his ceremonial ablutions for purification in water poured 
 from a brass lota. 
 
 As the sunset glories faded and the stars shone out more 
 brilliantly the priest intoned a litany, to which all devoutly responded; 
 then one by one he took the chatties of good milk or water, and 
 
 ' Sir James Emerson TonnaiU meiuions tliis worship as occurring once a year, on 
 the 23rd January.
 
 TRINCOMALEE—SAAMI ROCK 409 
 
 poured them out on the rock as a hbation.' After this, while still 
 chanting the litany, he took each gift, and from his giddy height cast 
 it into the fathomless ocean, far, far below, a true offering to the 
 Almighty Giver. 
 
 Then kindling a fire on the rock pinnacle, he thrice raised a 
 blazing brand on high, and all the people threw their arms heavenward. 
 Afterwards he lighted a brazen censer and swung it high above his 
 head, till the still evening air was all perfumed by the fragrant incense. 
 Finally, descending from his post of danger and honour, he took 
 ashes from the sacred fire and therewith marked each worshipper on 
 the forehead, after which they silently dispersed, and in the quiet 
 starlight wended their way back to lower earth. 
 
 A more strikingly impressive scene I have never witnessed, and I 
 need scarcely say that to me it proved so irresistibly attractive that 
 again and again I found my way at sunset to the same spot, whence 
 I commanded so perfect a view of the Saami Rock. I found that 
 the worshippers assembled there every Monday and Friday evening, 
 and one night I had the good fortune to witness this ceremony just 
 at the moment when the great full moon was rising from the waters, 
 and nothing more solemn could be conceived. There was the 
 mellow light of the moon flooding the calm sea, and the red firelight 
 glowing on the dark crag and on the brown skin and white turbans 
 and drapery of the worshippers, while from across the harbour 
 flashed one vivid terrestrial star from the lighthouse on Foul Point. 
 
 It seems that at the time when the Tamil conquerors crossed from 
 the coast of Malabar and invaded Ceylon, they resolved to appropriate 
 a spot so venerated by the aborigines ; so having (so they said) 
 proved from their sacred Furanas that Trincomalee was a fragment 
 of the holy Mount Meru, which had been hurled from heaven in a 
 celestial turmoil, they thereon built a stately shrine dedicated to Siva, 
 and which is still remembered as the shrine of a Thousand Columns. 
 
 In the year a.d. 1622, however, the Dutch deeming it necessary 
 to erect forts at various important points in order to secure themselves 
 against the Portuguese, took possession of Trincomalee, and ruthlessly 
 appropriated the great temple as the (]uarry to supply building materia 
 
 ' Precisely as was done by our own ancestors — a custom kept up in many a corner 
 of Great Britain long after Christianity was the only recognised religion in the land. 
 For instances of such libations being offered even in the last century in our northern 
 isles and Highlands see ' In the Hebrides,' pp. 71 and 192 to 194. By C. F. Gordon- 
 Camming. Published by Chatto and Windus.
 
 4IO TIJ'O HAPPY YEARS IX CF.YLON 
 
 for their fortifications. Consequently sculptured and carved stones 
 are still to be discerned here and there in the walls of Fort Frederick 
 (a name said to have been bestowed in honour of Frederick William, 
 Elector of Brandenburg). 
 
 One solitary pillar on the highest point of the crag commemorates 
 the suicide in a.d. 1687 of Francina \'an Reede, a Dutch maiden of 
 good family, whose betrothed had forsaken her, and had embarked 
 for Europe with his regiment. Ere the vessel could clear the coast, 
 she had to tack, and again ran close inshore beneath this precipice, 
 and at that moment the girl sprang from the dizzy summit, and, in 
 presence of her faithless lover, fell a mangled corpse on the dark rocks 
 which jut through the surging surf far below. 
 
 Although the aforesaid pillar bears a Dutch inscription recording 
 this sad event, it is so precisely like some of the most prominent 
 pillars in the ruined wave-washed temple at Doiadra Head (the 
 southernmost point of the Isle) — pillars with the identical alternate 
 sections, square and octagonal— that I have little doubt that this was 
 one of the ' Thousand Columns ' of Siva's shrine. 
 
 I ascertained that the officiating priest of the rock, though not a 
 true Brahman, was one of the spurious low-caste Brahmans so 
 common in Southern India,^ who habitually minister at the blood- 
 stained altars of Siva, with whom Eiswarama has been so artfully 
 identified ; indeed, I learnt that the Saami Rock is often described 
 as Kon-Eiswara-Parvatia, thus also honouring Siva's wife, the goddess 
 Parvati. 
 
 There is, however, no doubt that the worship of Eiswara is by far 
 the most ancient faith of the island, and there is every reason to 
 believe that this striking ceremonial has continued unchanged from 
 remote ages. Whole dynasties have arisen and become extinct- 
 conquering races from India, Portugal, Holland, and Britain have 
 successively held sway in the fair Isle, and the one thing which has 
 continued the same from generation to generation has been this 
 evening sacrifice. 
 
 Not 'neath the domes where crumbling arch and cohimn 
 Attest the feebleness of mortal hand, 
 
 ' ' In the Himalayas and on Indian Plains," pp. 578-580. Published by Chatto and 
 Windus. For a curious example of a very venerated and most foul Hindoo shrine 
 being enclosed within the great Mahommedan — now British — fort at Allahabad, see 
 p. 75 of the above.
 
 TRINCOMALEE-SAAMI ROCK 41 1 
 
 But in that fane, most catholic and solemn, 
 Which God hath planned. 
 In that cathedral, boundless as our wonder. 
 Whose quenchless lamps the Sun and Moon supply. 
 Its choir the winds and ^vaves, its organ, thunder, 
 Its dome the sky. 
 
 To me it seemed a very impressive and simple act of worship, 
 singularly free from idolatry, and in very marked contrast with the 
 many painful forms of devil-worship which met us at e\ery turn in 
 the beautiful Isle of Palms. 
 
 I confess to a feeling of real regret when I learnt how, in 
 September 1889, this solemn natural shrine had become the scene of 
 contention between the priests of rival sects, a Pandaram priest 
 appealing against a Brahman for declaring that he alone was entitled 
 to officiate as priest at the Saami Rock, and there to perform Sivite 
 religious ceremonies. The dispute ended in a civil trial before the 
 District Judge, each party being defended by native counsel, and the 
 case was given in favour of the Pandaram priest, to whom were 
 awarded damages to the value of 120 rupees. 
 
 Moreover, in consequence of the increased military precautions 
 at Trincomalee, it has been decided that henceforth worshippers will 
 only be allowed access to the .Saami Rock on the first and last Fridays 
 of each month, no one being now admitted to Fort Frederick without 
 a pass from the Commandant. 
 
 In truth, not for the sake of Ceylon only, but for the protection 
 of the world's mercantile marine, there was much need to strengthen 
 the somewhat antiquated military defences of this magnificent 
 harbour ; and as regards Fort Frederick, isolated as it is from the 
 mainland by the low grassy neck of the peninsula, one cannot but 
 fear that, in case of a siege, the beleaguered garrison would find 
 themselves in as difficult a position as were the Dutch when, in August 
 1 795, they were here besieged by a British force consisting of the 7 ist, 
 72nd, 73rd, and 77th regiments, together with artillery, and two 
 battalions of Sepoys, under command of Ceneral Stewart. As they 
 entered the harbour one frigate struck on a sunken rock and was lost. 
 At the end of three weeks the garrison was forced to capitulate, since 
 which time the Union Jack has here floated in undisturbed posses- 
 sion. 
 
 Previous to that date this beautiful l.ay had witnessed many a 
 struggle between the covetous P^uropean Powers, who each craved a
 
 412 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 monopoly of Singhalese commerce. First of all, in 1612, the King 
 of Kandy, who hoped by the aid of the Dutch to get rid of the 
 Portuguese, permitted the former to erect a fort at Cottiar, on the 
 southern side of the Bay of Trincomalee. This, however, was no 
 sooner done than it was captured and destroyed by a Portuguese 
 force, which had rapidly marched across the Isle from Colombo or 
 Negombo. 
 
 In 1622 the Dutch seized and garrisoned Trincomalee itself, but 
 finding that holding forts on the east coast of the Isle was of no avail 
 in securing the cinnamon trade of the western provinces, they shortly 
 after abandoned both Trincomalee and Batticaloa. 
 
 Thus it was that when, in 1657, the Ann frigate of London, a 
 trading vessel commanded by Captain Robert Knox for ' the 
 Honourable the East India Company,' was driven to anchor in 
 Cottiar Bay for necessary repairs, they found there no Europeans, but 
 what seemed at first a very kind welcome from the natives. The 
 story of the treacherous seizure of the captain, his son, and the greater 
 part of the crew, and the graphic account of the then quite unknown 
 interior of the island, and the customs of the king and people of 
 Kandy, which was published by Robert Knox, junior (when, after 
 twenty years of captivity, he at length contrived to escape, and after 
 infinite difificulties reached the Dutch fort of Arrepa, near Manaar, on 
 the north- east coast), is one of the most remarkable and interesting 
 volumes of pioneer travel. The modern Cottiar is a populous village 
 of industrious Tamils. 
 
 The Dutch subsequently reoccupied the forts of Cottiar and 
 Batticaloa, both of which, strange to say, they abandoned without a 
 blow, in 1672, in their panic at the sudden arrival of the French 
 squadron under Admiral De la Haye. The French at once took 
 possession of Trincomalee, but being unable to maintain a firm hold in 
 the island, they disappeared as unexpectedly as they had arrived. 
 At that time the Dutch had about a hundred ships constantly 
 trading between Cottiar and Coromandel, whence they brought clothes 
 and other wares to exchange for timber, areca-nuts, palmyra-sugar, 
 and rice. 
 
 In 1782 Great Britain first appeared on the scene. War having 
 been declared against Holland, a British force, commanded by Sir 
 Hector Munro, took possession of Trincomalee, which, however, was 
 so inadequately garrisoned that it was almost immediately afterwards 
 surprised by the French tloet commanded by Admiral Suffrein, by
 
 TRINCOMALEE^SAAMI ROCK 413 
 
 whom the British force was removed to Madras, and in the following 
 year Trincomalee was restored to the Dutch. 
 
 But the time had now come for British rule in Ceylon, and in 
 1795 Lord Hobart, Governor of Madras, fitted out the expedition 
 commar.ded by General Stewart, which landed at Trincomalee, and, 
 as I have already stated, captured the fort after a three weeks' siege. 
 Then, in rapid succession, Jaffna, Calpentyn, Negombo, Colombo, 
 Caltura, Point de Galle, Matura, and all other strongholds of the 
 Dutch, were ceded to the English, who thus became the undisputed 
 rulers of the maritime provinces, and no clamour of war has since then 
 disturbed the peace of this fair harbour. 
 
 In ]8oi, however, no less than 5,000 British troops assembled 
 here under command of Colonel Arthur Wellesley (the great Duke 
 of Wellington), with the intention of proceeding hence to Java ; but 
 this force was ordered to Egypt under Sir David Baird, and Colonel 
 Wellesley returned to India. 
 
 Latterly the garrison has numbered about 400 men of the 
 Engineers, Highlanders, Artillery, and Pioneer force, besides those 
 employed at the Naval Depot. Now, however, prudence requires 
 the adoption of necessary precautions, therefore modern science is 
 being brought to bear in all directions ; and what with the enlarging 
 and strengthening of the old forts, and building of a new one, and of 
 extensive barracks for a greatly increased military force, while the 
 restoration of the great tank at Kanthalay is bestowing new life on all 
 the agricultural population of the district, Trincomalee is fast becom- 
 ing a place of very much greater importance than it was at the time 
 of our visit ; but whether it will not thereby lose much of its charm 
 is another question. 
 
 It is not often that I am attracted by the picturescjucness ot 
 Dutch buildings, but within Fort Frederick, beneath the cool shade 
 of large dark trees, there is a most fascinating old well. Two heavy 
 pillars coated with cream-coloured chunam, once polished like 
 marble, but now partially stained with orange -coloured lichen, 
 support a heavy overhanging roof of rounded red tiles, which are the 
 playground of many squirrels. To a stout rafter is attached a pulley 
 over which passes a long rope ; to this is attached the bucket where- 
 with brown men (clothed only in a white waist-cloth and scarlet 
 turban) fill their great red water-pots for domestic use. It is all very 
 pleasant to the artistic sense, though I suppose we must admit that for 
 practical purposes unromantic leaden pipes have their advantages !
 
 414 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 But for a never-failing supply of sketchable scenes, one has 
 only to turn to the nearest temple, whether Tamil or Buddhist, and 
 here at a small Hindoo temple I found a most primitive Juggernath 
 car, adorned with gaudy mythological pictures and thatched with 
 dry palmyra-leaves of a pale straw colour. It was drawn on a rude 
 wooden platform supported by four heavy unwieldy wheels, each 
 constructed of three solid wooden planks, fastened together by cross- 
 pieces of roughly-shaped wood. A very brown old Tamil priest, 
 with scanty yellow drapery, stood beside the rickety old car, shading 
 himself with part of a dry taliput palm-leaf — a fine study in colour. 
 In the background stood the domed temple with red pillars and 
 red wall, surrounded by cocoa and palmyra palms, each laden with 
 golden nuts. 
 
 Close by, a statuesque brown water-carrier was drawing his 
 supplies from a rude well by means of a red jar slung on a bamboo, 
 which creaked ceaselessly as it rose and fell, emulating the harsh cries 
 of sundry birds and insects. 
 
 One very attractive small bird, which walks tamely about the 
 gardens at Trincomalee, has a purple head and breast and sienna 
 back. It roosts in the palms, and we were often startled by its re- 
 sounding sonorous call — a single note, ' Hoo[) 1 hoop ! ' — so deep and 
 far-carrying that on a still evening it is heard very far off. I was told 
 that this was a jungle-crow, but as this name was also applied to a 
 larger bird, somewhat suggestive of a magpie, except that instead of 
 being black and white its colouring is brown and black and its eyes 
 red, I cannot venture to say which bird is entitled to the name. 
 
 Still more fascinating are the dainty little sunbirds, which, with 
 long brush-like tongue, capture insects, and also feed on nectar of 
 flow^ers. Some have maroon bands on the breast, others primrose- 
 colour ; they love the fragrant pink oleander and scarlet hybiscus 
 with glossy dark-green foliage. The Singhalese call these dainty 
 creatures 'Flower-honey birds.' One of very brilliant plumage is 
 distinguished as the tiny sunbird, being only three and a half inches 
 long. It is, however, very i-are. 
 
 Happily the lovely little puri)le sunbird is more common. Its 
 liead and throat are of a bright metallic green, shading into the 
 glossy purple of back and tail, while beneath each wing is a tuft of 
 gold, displayed when the dainty chirping creature is fluttering over 
 flowers to extract their honey. Not that it confines itself to nectar 
 only, for it thoroughly enjoys good substantial spiders. It builds a
 
 TRINCOMALEE—SAAMI ROCK 415 
 
 most artistic pear-shaped nest of grass, interwoven with hair and 
 spider's-web, and lined with feathers and tufts of silky cotton. This 
 is deftly slung from the bough of some shrub, and herein in the 
 month of April it lays two or three greenish eggs with brown 
 specks. Of course in autumn we saw only empty nests. 
 
 Then there are the wren-babblers and scimitar-babbler (the latter 
 so called because of its long curved yellow beak), neat little brown 
 birds, common in the low-country jungle, which run up and down 
 trees, hopping and jerking like woodpeckers, hunting for insects. 
 They utter a loud melodious call, with very varied notes, and are 
 cheery companions when one is sitting quietly sketching. There are 
 also exquisite little flower-peckers, peculiar to Ceylon ; some very 
 gaily coloured, with dark-blue back, yellow breast, and white throat ; 
 others all olive-green except the stomach, which is grey. 
 
 Speaking of birds, a kind of swallow was pointed out to me, 
 which is also said to be peculiar to Ceylon, and which not only 
 builds on houses, just as our own do, but also in marshy places and 
 near rice-fields. Its throat and breast are brown, but its back and 
 wings are black, and its general appearance sufficiently suggestive of 
 our own familiar friends to be very pleasant in a far country. 
 
 I found so much attractive sketching-ground in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of Trincomalee that I did not care to go very far afield. 
 But one lovely morning we drove at dawn to the Periyakulam, one of 
 the ancient tanks, which is now, like so many others, simply a pretty 
 lake covered with water-lilies. On the embankment stands a gigantic 
 upright boulder, known as the Nine-Pin Rock, which looks as if it 
 must topple over with the first strong gale. It would be curious to 
 know for how many centuries it has held its ground. 
 
 One of our pleasantest early morning rides was to visit a group 
 of seven hot springs on a wooded hill-range about eight miles from 
 Trincomalee. Ceylon is so free from any trace of recent volcanic 
 agency that a very special interest attaches to these. ' The place is 
 called Kannya, some say in ' memory of ' seven celestial virgins ; * 
 others say in honour of Kannya, the mother of the arch-demon 
 Ravana, and that she is here worshipped by the Tamils, who come to 
 observe certain rites on the tliirlieth day after the death of their ki;:s- 
 
 1 There are also hot springs at BaduUa, Patipal Aar, near Batticaloa Kiiool, and 
 Medawewa, near Bintenne, and at Yavi Ooto, in the Veddah eountry. In all the 
 water is so pure as to be good for cooking purposes. 
 
 - Kaniiee, ' a virgin.'
 
 4i6 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 folk. A ruined temple, sacred to Ganesa, the elephant-headed god 
 of wisdom, proves that he received at least a share of homage. 
 
 Some distance to the north, at Mannakandal, in the W'anni, there 
 are sundry Buddhist ruins in the heart of the jungle ; amongst others, 
 those of seven temples within one enclosure. These are called 
 Kannya-Kovil, and are said to have been erected by, or else dedicated 
 to, seven virgin princesses of the Wanni district. 
 
 The seven springs were taken in hand by the Dutch as being 
 healing waters, and were confined within seven tanks of carefully 
 regulated degrees of heat. All are now in ruins, but the springs are 
 found to vary in temperature at different seasons from 85° to 122° 
 Fahr. Marvellous to relate, even when the thermometer has indicated 
 the latter degree of heat, live fish of several species - carp, roach, and 
 others — have been taken from these springs, and in the streamlet 
 which flows from them. 
 
 We were not so fortunate as to see any of these eccentric fishes, 
 so contented ourselves with watching the play of some harmless 
 snakes while we sat under the beautiful kitool, areca, and cocoa palms 
 which overshadowed the dilapidated tanks, enjoying our breakfast 
 and tea made with clear pure water from one of the boiling springs. 
 
 These families of the great clan Palm are comparatively rare in 
 the neighbourhood of Trincomalee, where the vast cocoa-groves of 
 the southern provinces are replaced by an incalculable multitude of 
 palmyra-palms,' which form a belt of dark -green all along the coast, 
 flourishing even on the brink of the salt coral-sand, where at high 
 tide the blue waters bathe the roots of their sturdy black stems, which 
 stand like regiments of well-drilled soldiers, faultlessly upright and 
 unbendingly stiff. 
 
 In every respect they present a curious contrast to the graceful 
 cocoa-palm, whose white stems bend in every variety of symmetrical 
 curve, while their long slender fronds (each composed of a multitude 
 of sharp glittering sword-shaped leaves) are rarely for one moment at 
 rest, but gleam in the sunlight while ceaselessly turning and trembling 
 with every breath of air. 
 
 The palmyra-palm, on the contrary, rises straight to a height of 
 60 or 70 feet, and bears a thick crown of stiff fan-shaped leaves, 
 deeply indented. Beneath them hang clusters of beautifully glossy 
 golden brown nuts, each about half the size of a cocoa-nut, but quite 
 circular, and a full-grown tree bears perhaps eight or ten Imnches of 
 
 ' Borassus Jiabelliformis.
 
 TRINCOMALEE—SAAMI ROCK 417 
 
 these, with a dozen or more in each cluster. Seen half in sunlight 
 and half shadowed by the dark crown of foliage against a vividly blue 
 sky, these brown and yellow nuts are beautiful, but as a fruit they 
 have none of the charm of the cocoa-nut, although they form the 
 staple food of the population on the north-east coast. 
 
 The glossy outer skin is so hard that only an expert hand can tear 
 it open. Within it, and mixed with fibre, is a farinaceous pulp, at 
 once oily and gelatinous, which even the natives rarely eat raw, but 
 when roasted or dried in the sun and then smoked, it is largely used 
 in making curries and cakes. It is said to be excellent when half 
 ripe, but is then very liable to produce dysentery. Embedded within 
 this pulp, each nut contains three very hard kernels or seeds, and of 
 the myriads of these which are annually sowed, only a very small 
 proportion are destined to become trees. The main crop is dug up 
 in infancy, when the root resembles a waxy parsnip, and is either 
 eaten as a vegetable, or dried and made into flour something like 
 tapioca. This root is known in the bazaars as kelingu, and the 
 dried fruit \'^ punatu. 
 
 A cruelly wasteful delicacy is obtained from this, as from several 
 other palms, by sacrificing a well-grown young tree for the sake of its 
 tender leading shoot, which much resembles a gigantic stalk of very 
 white celery, with a pleasant nutty flavour. 
 
 The palmyra-palm does not begin bearing fruit till it is upwards 
 of ten years of age, and a comparatively small number of the trees are 
 allowed to develop their crop of beautiful nuts, the majority being 
 tortured into yielding only the luscious sap, which when allowed to 
 ferment becomes slightly intoxicating and is known as toddy (doubt- 
 less so named by some early Scotch planter, in remembrance of the 
 whisky-toddy of the North !). By exposure to the sun the toddy 
 becomes vinegar, or, if sugar is required, a little lime is mixed with 
 the sap, which is then boiled down to a thick syrup, and poured into 
 baskets made from the palmyra leaf, and allowed to harden. In this 
 state it is sold ^s jaggery sugar, of which a very large amount is used 
 in the island. 
 
 In order to obtain this sap, the toddy-drawcrs, who are mavellously 
 expert climbers, ascend to the crown of leaves, beneath which, each 
 cradled in a long solid sheath or spathe, are the bunches of ivory-like 
 blossom bearing the embryo nuts. Each spathe having been tightly 
 bound to prevent its expansion, is ruthlessly beaten every morning 
 with a heavy wooden mallet, till the immature flower within, instead 
 
 E E
 
 4i8 Tiro HArpy years in cevlox 
 
 of developing into a thing of loveliness, is reduced to pulp^ but with- 
 out injuring its outer cover. 
 
 After about a week of this maltreatment, the sap begins to flow, 
 much to the satisfaction of swarms of insects^ who assemble to feast 
 thereon, and in their turn attract flocks of crows and various insecti- 
 vorous birds. These again afford many a dainty meal to the palm- 
 cat and sundry other foes, who climb the palms in pursuit of the 
 birds. 
 
 Meanwhile, the toddy-drawer having cut off the tip of the spathe 
 to allow the sap to drip, hangs a small clay chattie or a gourd beneath 
 each bleeding blossom, and thenceforth for about five months he 
 ascends day by day at early dawn to collect the sap, emptying each 
 little chattie into one suspended from his waist, and when that is full 
 he lowers it by a cord to an assistant below, who empties it into a 
 larger one. Every day he cuts a thin slice off the poor bruised 
 flower to make it bleed afresh, and each flower continues to yield sap 
 for about a month. 
 
 Each tree yields on an average about three quarts a day (the 
 produce of the female tree is, however, considerably more than 
 double that of the male tree). 
 
 Only once in three years are these tortured trees allowed to ripen 
 their fruit, in order to save their lives, as otherwise they would die 
 under this unnatural treatment. The sweet juice from about nine 
 hundred trees being collected from the earthen chatties, is poured 
 into a copper still, and distilled three times over to obtain the strong 
 and highly intoxicating spirit called arrack, most of which, however, 
 is obtained from the cocoa-palm, which contains less sugar. 
 Palmyra-toddy is considered by connoisseurs to be too luscious. 
 
 The work of the toddy-drawer is no sinecure, for although by the 
 aid of a loop of flexible vine passed round his ankles, so as to enable 
 him to grasp the trunk of the tree with his singularly prehensile feet, 
 he contrives to climb with monkey-like agility, one man can scarcely 
 manage to ascend more than twenty trees every morning. So, in 
 order to lessen the toil of climbing, and enable each man to work a 
 hundred trees daily, half-a-dozen palm-tops are connected by ropes, 
 along which the drawer passes from tree to tree. Sometimes a 
 second set of ropes, some feet higher, are added for security, but 
 even with these it is a work of danger, and many horrible accidents 
 result from this practice, besides the fatalities recorded. 
 
 In the annual report of deaths from accident, a considerable
 
 TRINCOMALEE-SAAMI ROCK 419 
 
 number are shown to be caused by falling from trees. I have this 
 list for 1879; ^883, 1887, and 1890, and I see the deaths under this 
 head are respectively 255, 250, 326, and 369, and the majority of 
 victims were toddy-drawers, who in some cases lose their hold of the 
 slender coir rope while collecting the sap, but more often perish from 
 its breaking as they pass from one high tree-top to another. Some- 
 times the ropes are rotten, sometimes they are injured by rats, and in 
 some cases there has been reason to suspect an enemy of half-cutting 
 the rope. 
 
 The men engaged in this work are of very low caste, and in 
 too many cases their hardly-earned wages returned to the toddy- 
 merchant. There are, however, some brilliant exceptions, such as 
 that village of staunch Christians whom we visited near Batticaloa. 
 
 As a matter of course, the dress of these athletes is reduced to a 
 minimum, but in ascending the palmyra-palm they find it necessary 
 to wear a breastplate of stout leather as a protection against the very 
 rough stems. In ascending the smooth cocoa-palm this is not requisite. 
 
 That a tree so precious as the palmyra-palm should ever be 
 sacrificed for timber seems unnatural, but so valuable is its hard 
 black wood in house-building, that an immense trade is done therein, 
 especially for the supply of rafters, as it is found that even white ants 
 scarcely care to attack it. But as its value as timber increases with 
 its age (no tree bemg worth felling which has not attained at least a 
 hundred years), each tree has done a life-work of good service to 
 man ere it commences a second century of usefulness as an almost 
 imperishable timber. It has, however, one peculiarity, in that it 
 causes nails to rust rapidly. 
 
 It is somewhat singular that not only is the female palm so much 
 more generous than the male in her yield of sap, but also her timber 
 fetches a very much higher price, as being denser, harder, and darker in 
 colour. It is said that in order to increase these three qualities in 
 the male italm, the natives immerse the newly-felled timber in the 
 sea, and there leave it to season. Unlike the ebony tree, which con- 
 ceals its precious heart of black wood within an outer casing of white 
 wood, the palmyra carries its hard black wood externally, enfolding 
 a heart of soft white wood — a pretty subject for a tree-parable. 
 
 Great as is the demand for this timber, due care is, of course, 
 taken to keep up the supply of a tree so precious that the Tamils 
 recognise it as the Kalpa, or 'Tree of Life,' sacred to Ganesa, the 
 god of wisdom ; and whereas the Singhalese talk of the hundred and
 
 420 
 
 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 fifty good uses to which the cocoa-pahii lends itself, a Hindoo poet 
 sings of the eight hundred and one manners in which the palmyra 
 benefits mankind ! 
 
 It is estimated that there are on the Isle about twelve million 
 palms of this species, and as to the innumerable ways in which they 
 are turned to account (besides those to which I have already alluded), 
 I can only advise you to use your imagination, for you will find it 
 difficult to think of any necessary of life which native ingenuity will 
 not contrive to extract from this priceless tree— anything from a 
 walking-stick or a thatching-needle, to a bedstead, a ladder, a plough, 
 or a water-spout ! 
 
 As its stem yields timber for house-building, the leaves sui)ply 
 the best possible thatch, and material for weaving mats both for 
 ceiling and for floor ; baskets of all sorts, including some which can 
 be used as buckets for drawing water ; fans, umbrellas, coolies' hats, 
 ropes, fly-whisks, torches. Strips of these leaves, steeped either in 
 boiling water or in milk to render them pliable, and then smoothed 
 on a heavy wooden roller, form the equivalent of paper and parch- 
 ment— r/Ai'jr— only inferior to those obtained from the huge leaf of the 
 taliput-palm. 
 
 As the fruit, root, and sap of the tree supply food, palm-wine, sugar, 
 and oil for the use of man, the young leaves serve as fodder for his 
 cattle, and the hard spathe, wherein the blossom lay cradled, has 
 often been used to good purpose as a baby's bath. 
 
 I'he general effect of a great expanse of palmyras is certainly dull 
 and monotonous, but when seen near, nothing can be more pictur- 
 esque than a group of these, especially when, as is so frequently the 
 case, overgrown by some parasitic tree. During its prolonged youth, 
 the palmyra retains its great fan-shaped leaves, set spirally round the 
 ^teln like a huge corkscrew. When, with advancing years, these die 
 off, the solid leaf-stalk and coarse net-like fibre remain,''giving the 
 bla :k trunk a rugged, untidy appearance, but also affording support 
 to a great variety of delicate climbing plants, and offering a cradle 
 wherein many seeds lodge and germinate, especially those of the 
 banyan, which take root so effectually that ere long the parent stem 
 is completely enfolded, often strangled, by the too close embraces of 
 the long white arms and roots which twine around it in every 
 direction. 
 
 Such marriages of the sacred banyan and palm-tree, though by no 
 means uncommon, are regarded by the natives, whether Tamil or
 
 TRIXCOMALEE—SAAMI ROCK 421 
 
 Singhalese, with extreme reverence, and great was the interest 
 evinced by some who found me sketching a very remarkable grove 
 on the shore about a couple of miles from Trincomalee, where scores 
 of black palmyras were each thus enfolded by white banyans twisting 
 around them like contorted snakes. Sooner or later the ungrate- 
 ful parasite strangles the protector of its infancy, and is left standing 
 alone, twisted into e\ery conceivable fiintastic form. 
 
 In this particular instance the scene was absolutely fairy-like by 
 reason of the exquisite undergrowth of tall white lilies, like our lovely 
 virgin lily, but streaked with most delicate pink — truly a vision of 
 delight. These were growing luxuriantly all along the shore, which, 
 moreover, was richly carpeted by the goat's-foot, Ipomea, a large 
 lilac convolvulus, whose glossy green foliage, with profusion of deli- 
 cate blossoms, mats the sands to the very brink of the sea, affording 
 shelter to thousands of tiny crabs. This pretty plant flourishes 
 on the seaboard in all parts of the Isle, and constitutes one of the 
 many charms of the beach. 
 
 As to the crabs, they were a constant source of amusement, 
 especially one odd little creature, with one claw longer than all the 
 rest of its tiny body. It sidles along at a great pace, holding up this 
 great claw as if to attract attention ; hence it is generally known as 
 the calling crab. (I saw myriads of these crabs in Fiji, but far more 
 brilliantly coloured.)^ 
 
 I only wish it were possible for words to convey any impression 
 of the fascination of such a shore as that of the calm bay on which 
 we looked down from the Government Agent's house— clear glittering 
 waters rippling on sands strewn with pearly Venus-ear and many 
 another shell ; brown children paddHng tiny canoes made of rudely 
 Iiollowed logs ; a lilac-and-grecn carpet of the marine convolvulus 
 losing itself beneath the shadow of a grove of tall, graceful cocoa- 
 palms bending in every direction ; and then the rocky headlands, 
 so inviting for a scramble, with their broken crags, rock pinnacles, 
 and at least one great natural archway offering cool shade beneath 
 which to rest while revelling in the loveliness of all around. 
 
 Just above it stands the pleasant home, with its red-tiled roofs 
 and pillared verandah, overshadowed by beautiful trees and sur- 
 rounded by aloes and flowery shrubs. Add to all this the vivid 
 light and colour of sea and sky, and surely you can realise some- 
 thing of the charm of many a home on this sweet Isle. 
 
 ' 'At Home in Mji,' vol. i. p. 257, and vol. ii. p. 2.
 
 422 TIVO HAPrV YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 TRINCOMALEl': TO GALLE 
 
 Tiinconialec — A Tamil play — A luminous sea — Balticaloa — Flying-fish — Gallo— Buona 
 Vista — A kabragoya— Green corals — Uses of the cocoa-palm. 
 
 I HAVE seen some curious specimens of plays and theatres in many 
 lands, but none more singular than an evening open-air performance 
 at Trincomalee by a company of Tamil actors. The ground formed 
 a grassy amphitheatre gently sloping down to the centre, where a 
 large circular stage was erected, and protected from possible rain by 
 a canopy of matting. The spectators were closely seated in circles 
 all around, those at the back being sufficiently raised to command an 
 excellent view of the stage, which was divided into six imaginary 
 sections, the players actually performing each short scene six times 
 over, facing each section of the audience by turns. Wearisome as 
 such a performance would prove if seen too often, it was certainly 
 interesting for once, and the native spectators were evidently de- 
 lighted, and waited with exemplary patience while each scene went 
 the round of the other five sides. 
 
 A few of the actors were very handsomely dressed, to represent 
 ancient Tamil kings and queens, and loaded with gorgeous jewellery 
 of real old patterns. Some wore large richly jewelled animals placed 
 on each shoulder or on the head, the front of the stage being dimly 
 lighted by rude lamps fed with cocoa-nut oil, and stuck on plantain 
 stems about five feet high. These details would have been invisible 
 had not each of the principal actors been escorted by a coolie in the 
 ordinary undress, whose duty it was to carry a small earthenware 
 lamp fastened to the end of a stick, and this he thrust right in the 
 face of his master that all might be able to see him and his finery. 
 
 A number of other coolies in the lightest of raiment stood about 
 on the stage to help in various ways, and as the orchestra (which con- 
 sisted of a chorus of discordant voices and musicians beating tom- 
 toms and other drums, blowing shells and shrill pipes) was also on 
 the stage, and all moved round together, the effect was most con- 
 fusing, and the richly dressed actors were almost hidden by the 
 scantily draped subordinates. 
 
 It is difficult to realise that it is not so very long since our own
 
 TRIXCOMALEE TO GALLE 423 
 
 drama was even more primitive than this, and yet our kinga and their 
 courtiers could sit out a ' morahty' or a ' mystery' continuing for nine 
 or ten hours.' 
 
 Happily for the success of this open-air entertainment, the 
 weather proved perfect, which was more than we could count upon, 
 for (it was now the end of September) heavy tropical thunderstorms 
 were pretty frequent and were certainly no joke. Sometimes they 
 came on very suddenly. Dark clouds gathered with surprising 
 rapidity, and then the blinding glare of vivid lightning and the 
 crashing thunder-peals were succeeded by such a pitiless deluge as 
 defied the stoutest water-proofs. Such storms, however, passed away 
 as quickly as they arose, and seemed only to add fresh charm to the 
 fragrant stillness of the night, illuminated by a thousand points of 
 glittering pale-green light as the light-giving beetles which we call 
 fire-flies flashed to and fro, and the whole air was perfumed with the 
 fragrance of orange, lime, and shaddock blossoms. 
 
 But the chance of such soakings and the amount of ' roughing ' 
 which is inevitable in jungle travel form a grave risk for anyone not 
 endowed with very robust health, and even before we reached 
 Trincomalee it was evident that the Bishop would be compelled to 
 abandon his northward journey to Jaffna, in the extreme north of the 
 Isle. When, therefore, at the end of an anxious month of severe 
 illness, the kindest and most careful of doctors (Dr. Goodwin) was 
 able to sanction his leaving Trincomalee, it was clear that he must 
 return to Colombo by the easiest route, namely, by the Government 
 steamship Serendib,'^ which had only to call at Batticaloa and Galle. 
 So, after a regretful parting with many friends whose kindness at 
 such a time can never be forgotten, we embarked one evening at 
 sunset, and some hours later sailed out of the beautiful harbour in 
 the clear starlight. 
 
 The sea there is intensely phosphorescent, and it seemed that 
 
 1 On such occasions the stage was a rush-strewn scaffolding, with a hght cloth 
 canopy, and that scenic effects were not costly may be inferred from such entries in the 
 accounts of the play-giving guilds as the following :— ' Paid for mending of Hell, 2((. 
 For ktcping fire at ditto, 4^/. For setting the world on fire, S(^. To Crowe for making 
 three worlds, 35.' The chief actors received 3.?. j,d. each, but \.he prima do/ma only 2S. 
 
 It is curious to learn that, as in China at the present day, so in Britain prior to 
 A.n. 1661, no women might appear on the stage, so that for at least half a century all 
 Shakspeare's daintiest dames were impersonated by youths ! 
 
 2 One of the many names by which Ci-ylon was known to the ancients and to the 
 writers of ' The Arabian Nights.'
 
 424 Tiro HAPPY YEARS LV CEYLO.V 
 
 night as though the sea-gods were holding high revel, and we poor 
 mortals strained our eyes in the effort to peer down through the 
 waves, which were all aglow with marine fireworks and illuminations. 
 I never saw anything more lovely. The sky was very dark, with 
 stormy clouds scudding before a pretty stiff breeze, but the sea was 
 all full of dancing, glittering points of pale white fire, with here and 
 there large dazzling stars, which gleamed suddenly, then faded away into 
 darkness, like the intermittent flash from some beacon-light. Wave 
 beyond wave, right away to the horizon, was plainly defined in pallid 
 light, here and there crested with brighter fire, where the breeze had 
 caught the curving billow and tossed it back in glittering spray. 
 
 As we looked down through the waters and watched the myriad 
 points of light rushing upwards, some one suggested a comparison to 
 champagne or some such effervescing drink alive with air bubbles. 
 But these luminous globules frequently start on independent careers, 
 and dash to right or left, according to some impulse of their own 
 devising. 
 
 Often as I have watched the phosphoric wonders of our dark 
 Northern seas (when, sailing through a shoal of herring, each 
 separate fish has seemed a thing of living light), I have never seen the 
 light so widespread as here. It seemed as if the sea-gods had issued 
 large supplies of phosphorus for the occasion, for creatures which on 
 other nights are quite invisible, to-night shone, probably with borrowed 
 lustre. Large families of flying-fish darted from the water as we 
 passed, suggesting flights of luminous birds, and here and there a 
 school of great, heavy porpoises rushed by, leaving a trail of living 
 fire ; and thousands of delicate little jelly-fish floated peacefully along, 
 like inverted cups fringed with fire — most lovely, fiiiry-like creatures. 
 
 On a night like this I always, if possible, take up a position either 
 at the bow or stern of the ship. From the former you look sheer 
 down, as from the edge of a precipice, and watch the dividing of the 
 waters as the vessel cuts her way through the waves, and the startled 
 creatures of all sorts awaken, but in their hurried flight they quickly 
 light their lamps, and -the white spray that is thrown off from the 
 bows, in a ceaseless fountain, glitters like a shower of radiant stars. 
 It always reminds me of the Ancient Mariner's lonely watch, when 
 from his eerie ship 
 
 The elfish light fell off in hoary flakes ! 
 Coleridge must assuredly have watched on such nights as these.
 
 TktNCOMALEE TO GALLE 4^5 
 
 Then, if you make a pilgrimage to the stern, and can endure to 
 stand just above the throbbing, thumping screw, you see the most 
 wonderful sight of all. For the great propeller literally churns the 
 waters far, far below the surface ; and each stroke produces a body 
 of clear green and blue light, which rolls upwards in a soft brilliancy 
 quite indescribable— like dissolved opals. As each successive globe 
 of this fairy-like green fire rises to the surface, it breaks in bubbling, 
 hissing spray, and spreads itself over the surface, leaving a pathway 
 of fire, which remains visible for a long time after the vessel has 
 passed, fading away in the distance, hke a reflection of the Milky 
 Way that spans the dark sky above it. 
 
 Some of my far-travelled companions, who had sailed in many 
 seas, were talking one evening of the various forms in which this 
 beautiful phenomenon appears. One of the officers had the good 
 luck to see what is known as 'white water' as he crossed the Arabian 
 Sea. It was a dark moonless night in summer, only the stars were 
 reflected on the calm waters, when suddenly a soft, silvery light over- 
 spread the ocean — a tremulous, shimmering light ; the waters lay 
 smooth as a mirror. He drew up a bucketful of this gleaming water, 
 and found it was clouded, as if tinged with milk, and luminous with 
 phosphorus. ^Vhen he emptied the bucket it continued to glow for 
 some time. 
 
 Another officer said he too had seen a milk-white sea, in about 
 the same part of the ocean, but when some of the men on board 
 drew up water for examination it was perfectly clear, and they 
 concluded that the curious ap[)earance of the sea was due to the fact 
 that they were passing through a soft hazy mist, and though the night 
 was so dark that they were scarcely conscious of its influence, they 
 supposed that it in some way refracted the starlight on to the surface 
 of the waters, and to this they attributed the quivering of the pallid 
 light— tremulous as a mirage.' 
 
 If this was really the cause of the light, it must have been due to 
 some very strange condition of the atmosphere, as even in the tropics 
 such a phenomenon is very rarely seen, and we cannot say as much 
 for mists ! 
 
 1 am told that a similar appearance has occasionally been 
 observed in the North Sea, and even on the Northumbrian coast ; 
 
 1 I have myself witnessed just such an effect of dazzling liglit, iliuiuinaiing the 
 whole surface of the water, during two midnight storms in New Zealand. \'ide ' At 
 llonie m iMJi,' vol. ii. p. 169.
 
 426 TIFO llAPPV YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 and the fishers have noted tliat its presence indicated a very poor 
 herring season, and that the temperature of tiie sea was unusually 
 hit^h during its duration. It proved to be a very tangible form of 
 whiteness, for when they drew up their nets they found them coated 
 with a substance resembling lime.^ 
 
 \V^e reached Batticaloa about noon on the following day, and were 
 once more cordially welcomed to the same pleasant quarters which 
 had been assigned to us on our previous visit. 
 
 On the following morning, Captain Varian having most kindly 
 undertaken to show me some of my brother's cocoa-nut estates, we 
 started before dawn in one of the Screndib boats, towed by the 
 steam-launch a long way ahead of us— a delightful mode of travel, 
 securing perfectly smooth, gliding motion. The morning was ex- 
 quisite, and all the ranges of blue, distant hills and wooded headlands 
 were faultlessly mirrored in the calm sea-lake. 
 
 About eighteen miles from Batticaloa we landed at the first estate, 
 then proceeded to another, and ploughed our way through an ap- 
 parently interminable grove of cocoa-palms all planted in straight 
 lines, at regular intervals, in deep, hot sand — endless rows of tall 
 palms, all of much the same height, extending for miles and miles as 
 far as the eye could see, and much farther, all growing out of the 
 arid sand — very different from lovely half-wild groves where trees of 
 all ages grow at their own will from a cool, deep carpet of the greenest 
 guinea-grass by the brink of some cool lake ; the young ones like 
 huge clumps of great ferns growing cup-wise, others in every stage of 
 growth, the middle-aged ones strongly resembling tree ferns with 
 fronds fully twenty feet in length. It would be difficult to imagine 
 richer vegetation than that, but these orderly plantations are quite 
 another thing. 
 
 It was very fatiguing even to walk once along that sand track, and 
 I realised as I had never done before what must have been the sinking 
 loneliness of the brave young heart, exiled from one of the cheeriest 
 and most beautiful homes in Scotland, to settle quite alone on these 
 desolate sand-banks, and commence the toil of planting them with 
 the nuts about which so little was then known that speedy remunera- 
 tion was expected, whereas the experience of the next fifteen years 
 was one of continual outlay, ceaseless watchfulness to defend the 
 
 1 The fisher-folk of Shields and 'rynemouth, and the villages immediately to the 
 north, noticed this peculiar condition of the water in the summer of 1878, which proved 
 an exceptionally bad year for the herring-fishers.
 
 TRINCOMALEE TO GALLE 427 
 
 young plantations from the ravages of most mischievous boring 
 beetles/ rats, white ants, herds of wild hogs, porcupines, troops of 
 elephants, and other foes, and no remuneration whatever. 
 
 Then, when the day of his emancipation came, the estates passed 
 to other hands, and strangers now reap the abundant fruits of his long 
 years of weary toil. 
 
 Planters of the present day, profiting by the experience of their 
 predecessors, find that by a liberal application of oil-cake, ashes, sea- 
 weed, salt mud, and various other manures, they can induce young 
 palms to commence flowering about the seventh year (some which 
 have been fed as carefully and liberally as prize oxen have actually 
 flowered in the fourth year), and, moreover, that the trees thus 
 nourished will bear at least twice as many nuts, but the work at the 
 time to which I refer was in a great measure experimental. 
 
 Even now cocoa-nut planting is a very uncertain venture, for not 
 only do many estates wait twenty years ere yielding a full return 
 (though probably about half the trees commence bearing in the four- 
 teenth year), but the crop is also very variable, some estates yielding 
 only one candy of copra to the acre, while others yield three. 
 
 The fact is, that there are in Ceylon a vast number of nameless 
 varieties of cocoa-palms, and unless almost impossible care is observed 
 in the selection of nuts for planting, the crops will always be variable. 
 An experienced planter says : ' One tree begins to flower in its fifth 
 year on four feet of stem ; its nearest neighbour, equally vigorous, 
 runs up to fifteen or even twenty feet, and only begins to flower in 
 the tenth year. One will have fertile germs on its first flower, and its 
 neighbour will only produce barren flowers for twelve months. One 
 will, within a year of opening its first flower, fall into a regular yield 
 of a hundred nuts per annum of medium size, while another close by 
 carries from thirty to forty very large ones, and the next in the same 
 line carries above two hundred very small ones.' 
 
 Besides these differences in the nuts themselves, varieties of soil 
 are responsible for many disappointments, some planters having 
 wasted much energy on swampy or clayey soils, only to find that after 
 ten or twelve years the palms gave no promise of fruit, while sandy 
 soil, moist but not too wet, is the most favourable. 
 
 In Ceylon the cocoa-nuts are gathered six times a year, and when 
 liberally manured and carefully tended should continue in bearing 
 for upwards of a century. 
 
 1 Otvctcs rhinoceros.
 
 428 TJfV HAPPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 We trudged through deep sand till we reached the small bungalow 
 of the present owner, who gave us refreshing cocoa-nuts to drink, and 
 lent us the cart, drawn by an elephant, which daily collects the fallen 
 nuts ; but I cannot say we found it pleasant, as the elephant had a 
 faculty for bolting first on one side, then on the other, against the 
 palms, thereby keeping us constantly on the jerk ; so we very shortly 
 agreed that even the fatigue of walking was preferable, and accordingly 
 descended from our uncomfortable quarters, and trudged through the 
 hot sand till we reached the site of my brother's original house, now 
 marked only by the fruit trees which he planted round it. 
 
 Wo. returned to Batticaloa at sunset, and in the peaceful moonlight 
 I stood by the grassy grave in the little ' God's acre,' with an intensified 
 sympathy for many of ' our boys ' leaving the happy home-nest to 
 carve their fortunes in distant lands. 
 
 Amongst minor details in a day of so great interest, I may mention 
 the multitude of fresh-water snail-shells which we found on the banks 
 of a small tank, and also the pleasure of finding a number of turtle's 
 eggs, each containing a perfect miniature turtle quite ready to be 
 hatched — the neatest tiny creatures. 
 
 On the following evening we took leave of our many kind friends, 
 and returned on board the Serendib, which was lying outside the 
 harbour-bar, and fully did we realise the sudden change from the 
 dead calm of the sea-lake thus guarded to the tossing ocean beyond. 
 
 This bar is often the occasion of very grave inconvenience to the 
 inhabitants of Batticaloa, for when a strong sea-breeze is blowing the 
 waves dash upon it so tumultuously that no boat dare face those 
 raging l)reakers. In this comparatively tideless sea, high or low tide 
 afford very slight variation in the depth of water on the bar, which in 
 the spring months is sometimes barely three and a half feet. More- 
 over, owing to the usual deposit of silt, the mouth of the river is 
 growing daily narrower, notwithstanding the strong current which 
 sweeps the shore. 
 
 Happily, the singular regularity in the variation of the direction 
 of the wind affords some security, as the boatmen well know that the 
 sea-breeze will attain its height shortly before noon, when the bar 
 will probably be impassable. But at night the land-breeze sets in 
 and (juiets the tumult, so that by morning there is comparative calm, 
 and from dawn till about 9 a.m. the bar can generally be crossed in 
 safety. But, of course, it is not always that a steamer can lie in the 
 open roadstead to await these possibilities, and so it occasionally
 
 TRINCOMALEE TO GALLE 429 
 
 happens that passengers and cargo cannot get on board, while other 
 passengers and goods cannot be put ashore. At other times the transit 
 is effected at the cost of an hour's hard rowing and a general soaking. 
 
 Happily for us, at the end of October, we had no such unpleasant 
 experience, wind and waves combining to speed us on our way. 
 
 All the next day was taken up in beating about in search of a 
 reported rock, which we failed to find ; but to a sketcher 'all is fish 
 that comes to the net,' and I was thus enabled to secure sundry 
 reminiscences of the coast as seen from the sea or the inland moun- 
 tain ranges. 
 
 Speaking of fish, I never remember seeing so many flying-fish as 
 on that voyage. They rose from the waves, at our approach, like 
 flashes of silvery spray, and flew perhaps two hundred yards, just 
 skimming the surface of the water — then again, just touching the 
 wave to moisten their transparent wings. They looked so like flights 
 of darting birds that I can well understand the ancients describing 
 them as 'sea-swallows.' 
 
 It seems barbarous to think of these graceful little creatures from 
 a gastronomic point of view% but certainly they are the very daintiest 
 fish-morsels that ever rejoiced an epicure. (In the West Indies they 
 are so highly prized that a special method of capturing them has been 
 devised. The fishers go out at nights in their canoes, carrying 
 blazing torches, to allure these inquisitive 'sea-moths,' who come 
 flying to the light, and are captured in small nets fastened on to poles, 
 like our landing-nets.) 
 
 I saved some of their wings (I suppose I ought correctly to say 
 'pectoral fins'), which are formed of a tissue of curious gauze-like 
 membrane, stretched on a folding framework, and must, I think, 
 have inspired Chinamen and other early sailors with the original 
 design for folding sails of matting on movable bamboos. 
 
 AVe reached Galle on the following afternoon, and foujid it 
 beautiful as ever, but the masts of yet one more newly sunken 
 i.teamer rose from the waters of its lovely, treacherous harbour, 
 wherein so many fine ships have met their doom. 
 
 Archdeacon Schrader ' the Good ' came to welcome the Lishop, 
 and to fetch us all to his hospitable roof, and to service at the beautiful 
 church. All Saints', which owes its existence to his energy. It is by 
 far the finest in the island, and one whose constant and hearty services 
 have come as a breath of home to many a wanderer from far-distant 
 lands, pausing here on his voyage.
 
 430 TJFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 On the following day the. Archdeacon drove us to see the large 
 Orphanage at Buona \'ista, which crowns the summit of the steep 
 headland which forms the southern arm of the harbour, and com- 
 mands a lovely view of Galle. We were most kindly received by Mr. 
 and Mrs. Marks,' who showed us their troop of very nice-looking 
 boys and girls. This is a mission- station of the S.P.G. Society, 
 and supplies Christian teachers, both male and female, for the sur- 
 rounding village schools. We were told that, of the children who 
 attend these village schools, about one-sixth are Christians, and it is 
 found that, even among those who at the time appear quite un- 
 influenced by Christian teaching, a considerable number receive im- 
 pressions, which, at a later period, develop into active principles. 
 
 Strange to say, the heathen parents, though perfectly aware of 
 the heart's desire of the teachers, make no objection Avhatever to 
 their children being carefully instructed in all Christian knowledge 
 until the day comes when the young student, being fully of age to 
 make his own decision, desires to be baptized. Then every possible 
 means is adopted to counteract his newly awakened faith. Buddhist 
 priests are called in to reason with him ; expulsion from home and 
 disinheritance are all threatened, but rarely overcome the resolution 
 once formed, and eventually the relations, finding they cannot shake 
 the faith of the young convert, abstain from active persecution. 
 
 On another hill, bearing the very British name of Richmond, and 
 also commanding a lovely view, stands the ^^^esleyan Mission and 
 its schools. It is in connection with a large chapel in the town, at 
 which services arc alternately held in English, Portuguese, and 
 Singhalese. 
 
 Greater interest in point of antiquity attaches to the fine old 
 cruciform Dutch church, which is paved with tombstones of bygone 
 generations, whose monuments also crowd the walls. Here services 
 according to the form of the Presbyterian Church of Holland are 
 held in English, recalling the autocratic manner in which the Dutch 
 concjuerors strove to ' convert ' the islanders by the aid of interpreters, 
 utterly refusing themselves to learn their language. 
 
 About ten miles inland from Galle lies Baddegama, a lovely spot 
 on the (iindura river, where, in 1818, the Church Missionary .Society 
 commenced England's first effort on behalf of her newly annexed 
 colony. A very satisfactory feature of this station is the boarding- 
 school for Singhalese girls, which has provided many well-taught 
 
 ' The Orphanage is now under the care of Miss Callender.
 
 TRIXCOMALEE TO GALLE 431 
 
 Christian wives for the young men trained in Christian colleges. 
 Some years ago the fine old church tower was struck by lightning, 
 as was also the verandah of the mission-house, and the mission- 
 ary in charge, Mr. Balding, narrowly escaped being killed, an inci- 
 dent of which he and his parishioners are perpetually reminded by 
 the sound of a cracked bell, said to have previously ])een well 
 toned. 
 
 Another point of interest near Baddegama is the oldest sugar- 
 cane estate in the Isle, a cultivation which has not been largely taken 
 up in Ceylon. 
 
 On our homeward way, as we drove through a cool shady glade, 
 the horses started as a gigantic lizard, or rather iguana, of a greenish- 
 grey colour, with yellow stripes and spots, called by the natives 
 kabragoya,' awoke from its midday sleep, and slowly, with the 
 greatest deliberation, walked right across the road just in front of us- 
 It is a notoriously slothful reptile, and on this occasion fully 
 sustained its reputation, for it did not hurry itself in the smallest 
 degree ; so we had to wait its time, and had full leisure to observe 
 the lazy movements of this strange creature, which was fully seven 
 feet in length, with a general resemblance to a crocodile. 
 
 Like that very unattractive monster, the kabragoya is amphibious, 
 and when in danger tries to make for the water. It is quite harmless, 
 however, except in the matter of eating fowls, and is eminently peace- 
 ful in its disposition, unless roused at close quarters, when, in self- 
 defence, it can turn on a foe and administer a tremendous blow with 
 its armour-plated tail, which, being provided with a sharp crest, can 
 inflict a very serious wound on the lightly draped natives. Occasion- 
 ally a rash aggressor receives a broken arm or leg, as a warning 
 against molesting harmless fellow-creatures ; consequently the Singha- 
 lese treat these huge lizards with considerable respect. The all- 
 destroying foreigner occasioivilly shoots one, and notes its strange 
 tenacity of life, the head being apparently the only vulnerable, or at 
 any rate the only vital, spot. I believe, however, that the Veddahs 
 are the only people who have sufficient strength of mind to eat the 
 ugly monster. 
 
 I had not been in (l-allc since the memorable occasion wlien I 
 first landed there on my way to India, and received my never-to-be- 
 forgotten very first impressions of palm-trees and the tropics — first 
 impressions of perfect novelty and fairy-like enchantment— so of 
 
 ' Ilv^iro saurus Sdk-a!or,
 
 432 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 course I longed to return to ^Vakwalla, to which we accordingly 
 drove in the evening. But, alas ! as with all else in this world, 
 familiarity does wear off the keen sense of delight even in palm-trees, 
 and exquisite as such a drive through mazes of tropical foliage must 
 ever be, I felt on this second visit to Wakwalla that my own 
 appreciation of its loveliness was somewhat dulled by the many 
 visions of tropical beauty on which my eyes had feasted since I had 
 first beheld it. 
 
 Nevertheless, it was with great pleasure that I accepted invitations 
 from several kind friends in Galle and its neighbourhood, with the 
 prospect of returning to Colombo by the lovely road along the sea- 
 coast — a drive of seventy miles all shadowed by the graceful palms 
 which droop right over the sea. 
 
 So the Sercndib sailed minus one passenger, and I made my way 
 to the farthest point of the ramparts to watch her safe out of the ill- 
 fated harbour with her precious freight of truest friends. Afterwards 
 I ascended the lighthouse, and thence looked down on the coral-reefs 
 clearly visible through the shallow, lustrous, emerald-green water- 
 reefs which come too near the surface for the safety of the harbour, 
 as many a good ship has proved to her cost.' 
 
 But beautiful as is such a bird's-eye view of the reef (which, when 
 lighted by the rays of the noonday sun, gleams like a lost rainbow, 
 held captive by water-sprites), its treasures of delight are only to be 
 fully appreciated by floating over it at low tide, in a boat drawing 
 only a few inches of water, and regardless of paint (for the sharp 
 cutting points of the coral are fatal to a trig ornamental boat). Only 
 thus is it possible to realise the loveliness of these submarine gardens, 
 where coral-trees, coral-shrubs, and coral-flowers of every hue, violet 
 and rose, red and brown, gold and lemon colour, are the homes and 
 playgrounds of all manner of strange, beautiful fishes, crabs, sea- 
 snakes, star- fish, sea-urchins, and innumerable other creatures, of 
 every conceivable shape and size and colour. 
 
 Naturalists, however, note with interest the remarkable pre- 
 dominance of green in the colouring of many of these creatures, as 
 though by assimilation to the prevailing verdure of the Isle. They 
 find green water-snakes and green fishes, Crustacea and star-fish, sea- 
 anemones and sea-urchins, sea-slugs and several shells of various 
 
 • I am lold that no less than twelve steamers have been wrecked in Gallc Harbour, 
 i.e., more than one-third of the total number of thirty- four which have been lost on the 
 shores of Ceylon.
 
 TklNCOMALEE TO GALLE 4j3 
 
 shades of olive or emerald greens, while a considerable number of 
 corals are verdant as the plants they so closely resemble.^ 
 
 All too fleetly the pleasant days slipped by with drives and boating 
 expeditions to many a lovely scene, and temptations for an artist on 
 every hand. After one long morning in search of the best point for 
 a panoramic sketch of Galle, I came to the conclusion that the very 
 finest view of the town and harbour was that from the verandah ot 
 Closenberg, a delightful bungalow, where we landed at some risk, as 
 the surf was running high and dashing in cataracts of spray against 
 the black rocks. However, skilful steering ran our boat in safety 
 between the biggest breakers, and I was soon most cosily ensconced 
 for my day's work. 
 
 Looking along the lovely palm-fringed shore, I could not but 
 think that if man does ' mark the earth with ruin ' in some places, as 
 in the central districts of this Isle, and wherever primeval forests are 
 cleared by planters beginning work, we often forget how deeply we 
 are indebted to those of past generations for much of what we accept 
 as natural beauty. As in New Zealand, Taheiti, and other isles, 
 where imported vegetation is even more luxuriant than that which 
 was indigenous, so here the improving hand of the foreigner has not 
 been confined to acclimatising the beautiful flowering shrubs which 
 adorn the gardens, but even the multiplication of the palms, which 
 now seem so natural a feature of Ceylon, was really greatly due to 
 the commercial instincts of the Dutch, who, finding that about nine- 
 tenths of the west coast, from Galle right up to Calpentyn (the whole 
 of which is now one succession of luxuriant cocoa-groves), was then 
 waste uncultivated land, offered Government grants thereof to all 
 [persons who would undertake to plant cocoa-palms, and thereon pay 
 a certain tax. 
 
 It would appear that strong pressure must have been brought to 
 bear to awaken the easy-going natives to the necessity of carrying out 
 this extensive scheme of cultivation of a crop which brings such slow 
 returns (ten years to wait at the very least). However, the planta- 
 tions were made, and the waste lands transformed to their present 
 beauty. Ikit even now the apathy of the villagers is such that, 
 although the shore may be strewn with masses of seaweed, which, if 
 collected and dug into the earth round the roots of the palms, would 
 
 1 Such are the Montipora, Madrcpora, MiUopora, Macaiuliiiia, Astnua, Ak-yonia, 
 Anthophylla, Heleropora.
 
 434 '^^^'0 HAPPY YEARS iN CEYlOiV 
 
 materially increase the crops, they will scarcely ever exert themselves 
 to utilise the manure thus laid ready to their hand. 
 
 At Jaffna and Batticaloa, where the cocoa-palms are now ubiqui- 
 tous, and might well be supposed to be indigenous, European planters 
 only commenced work in 1841, and, as I have already shown, many 
 of the early plantations ruined their first owners. 
 
 It is certainly remarkable how rarely the cocoa-j)aIm is mentioned 
 in old Ceylonese history ; it is never alluded to as food, whereas the 
 palmyra and taliput palms are frequently referred to. Not till the 
 twelfth century is it named as a tree worthy of cultivation. At all 
 events its merits are fully recognised in this nineteenth century ! 
 
 At Galle the heavy rainfall, attracted by the neighbouring hill 
 ranges (and which is three inches in the year in excess of that at 
 Colombo, the respective measurements being ninety and eighty-seven 
 inches), must always have favoured the luxuriant vegetation, and no 
 tree is more gratefully responsive for an abundant supply of rain than 
 is the cocoa-palm, of which it has been calculated that those bearing 
 fruit in this district alone exceed 5,300,000. The total number of 
 fruit-bearing palms on the shores of Ceylon is estimated at 50,000,000, 
 besides 200,000,000 which are either unproductive or are forced to 
 yield their life-blood in the form of toddy, chiefly for the manufacture 
 of arrack. But it is estimated that, even at the low average of 
 twenty-four nuts to a tree (and very many bear from sixty to eighty), 
 one thousand millions of nuts are annually allowed to ripen for the 
 good of man. Unlike the date, the cocoa-palm bears male and 
 female flowers on the same tree — in fact, on the same cluster. The 
 number of actually barren or male palms in Ceylon is singularly 
 small, being said not to exceed one in three or four thousand. 
 
 I speak of this palm as belonging to the shore, for it is emphati- 
 cally a coast tree, flourishing in a belt about fifteen miles in width. 
 The places where it has been successfully planted inland are so few 
 as to be (luite exceptional. Such are Mihintale, the sacred hill near 
 Anuradhapura, where groups of graceful palms wave around the 
 great dagobas which crown the summit. I also saw large flourishing 
 plantations in good bearing at Matele, which is about a hundred 
 miles inland, and about 1,274 feet above the sea-level; they also 
 bear well at Kandy, Gampola, Kurunegalla, and Badulla, all of which 
 are far inland, and the latter 2,241 feet above the sea. A few 
 scattered cocoa-palms have been grown as high as 3,500 feet, but 
 these bear no fruit.
 
 TRINCOMALEE TO GALLE 435 
 
 The Singhalese have a saying that this friendly palm cannot live 
 far from the sea, or from the sound of the human voice, and in proof 
 thereof point out that wherever you see a cluster of these tall crowns 
 you are sure to find a human house not far off. And what can be 
 more natural, seeing that each tree is somebody's private and very 
 valuable property,' the precious provider of 'golden eggs' in the 
 form of material for all things needful to existence? 
 
 The half-ripe fruits (in their hard outer cover, green or golden, as 
 the case may be) supply food of the consistency of jelly, and cool, 
 refreshing drink in a natural cup. The older brown nuts (as we 
 know them in Britain) give the hard white kernel, which is scraped as 
 a flavouring for curry, or mixed with sugar (obtained from the sap) to 
 make cakes, or else scraped and squeezed through a cloth to obtain 
 delicious cream, which is excellent in tea when cow's milk is not to 
 be obtained. I believe that the Singhalese anoint their glossy black 
 hair with a fine oil obtained by boiling this cream, but the regular oil 
 of commerce is extracted from the kernel after it has been left to dry 
 in the sun, when it is known as copperah 
 
 The small native oil-mills, or ' chekku,' as they are called, are of 
 the rudest construction, and turned by bullocks. Being entirely 
 made of wood, they creak in the most ear-splitting fashion, but they 
 do their work so efficiently and so cheaply that, happily for all who 
 appreciate primitive Oriental scenes, they hold their ground against 
 the costly steam oil-mills, steam crushers, and hydraulic presses set 
 up near Colombo by foreigners, so that about nine hundred of these 
 quaint mills are still creaking and grinding in the southern and 
 western provinces. (In 1876 it was stated that there were in the 
 whole Isle 1,930 chekkus worked by bullocks, beside about a dozen 
 steam mills with hydraulic machinery.) 
 
 Many of these chekkus are quite small, and worked by man- 
 power, and very picturesque they are, with a miniature thatch of 
 palm-leaves over the small vat containing the copperah, and perhaps 
 two or three brown children perched on the long handle by which 
 
 1 Here is a case in point : — 
 
 'Murder AKisiNG out of a Claim for a Coco-nut Tree.— On Sep- 
 tember II, 1890, Josappu, a tavern-keeper of Payyag^ila, was severely assaulted by 
 his cousin Bachappu and two others. The injured man was removed to the Kalutara 
 Hospital, where lie died the following day. It would seem that Josappu claimed a 
 share of the profits of a coco-nut tree which Bachappu was exclusively enjoying. The 
 latter could not or would not see the validity of his cousin's claim. A quarrel ensued, 
 with the result a'"oresaid.' 
 
 V I 2
 
 4j6 TJl^O IIATPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 their fatlier turns the vat, and so crushes out the oil. The clothing 
 of such groups is reduced to a minimum, that of the children often 
 consisting only of some charm against the evil eye or to protect them 
 from devils. The refuse left after extraction of the oil is called poonac, 
 and is either used as food for cattle and poultry or for manuring 
 the soil. 
 
 No refining process is required beyond a week's exposure to the 
 sun, by which time all impurities will have sunk to the bottom, and 
 the oil can at once be drawn off into casks. It is largely exported, 
 to be used in the manufacture of soaps and lubricants, also in the 
 preparation of stearine candles, and for these purposes is in increas- 
 ing demand. In Ceylon it is much used as a liniment wherewith to 
 rub the body in cases of rheumatism and other ailments, and the 
 Tamils, not the Singhalese, habitually oil their bodies after bathing ; 
 but as regards light, the simple lamp formed of a cocoa-nut shell, and 
 fed with cocoa-nut oil, is now very generally replaced, even in native 
 huts, by a kerosine lamp, as the imported mineral oil, even after 
 all its long journey from America, is cheaper than the native product. 
 
 It is not only in rheumatism that cocoa-nut oil is esteemed as a 
 remedy ; it is also applied to counteract insect stings, and when 
 mixed with the juice of the leaves is used in cases of ophthalmia. 
 Another sort of oil, extracted from the bark, is applied in skin diseases, 
 and even the root yields a medicine for the fever-stricken. An astrin- 
 gent lotion, bitter as alum, is obtained from the flower, which also 
 (when bruised in the manner I described when speaking of the pal- 
 myra-palm) yields toddy, vinegar, sugar, and, when distilled, the in- 
 toxicating spirit called arrack. 
 
 Toddy, which when first drawn in the early morning forms rather 
 a pleasant drink, commences fermentation before noon, and is highly 
 efficacious as a leaven for bread. After standing a few hours it 
 becomes highly intoxicating, and is frequently made more so by 
 adulteration with nux-vomica, seeds of Indian hemp, datura, and 
 other poisons. A fine of fifty rupees is, however, incurred by any 
 person detected in thus drugging either toddy or arrack. 
 
 But the simple mixing of toddy and arrack {i.e. the unfermented 
 with the distilled juice of the beautiful cocoa-flower) produces a very 
 ' heady' drink, on which a man can get exceedingly drunk for a very 
 small sum ; and sad to say, here as in Lower Bengal, where Buddhism 
 and Christianity have successively done so much to break down the 
 restraints of caste, that gain is in a measure neutralised by the f;ict
 
 TRIXCOMALEE TO GALLE 437 
 
 that the sobriety once characteristic of the people is rapidly disap- 
 pearing, and intemperance is grievously on the increase. 
 
 It is a sore subject that, whereas Hindoo, Mahommedan, and 
 Buddhist conquerors have ever abstained from deriving any revenue 
 from the intoxicating spirits which are forbidden by each of these 
 religions, a Christian Government should so ruthlessly place tempta- 
 tion at every corner both in Ceylon and in India, where, as has been 
 publicly stated by an Archdeacon of Bombay, the British Government 
 has created a hundred drunkards for each convert won by Christian 
 missionaries. 
 
 The toddy is converted into arrack in small local distilleries with 
 copper stills capable of containing from 150 to 200 gallons, which is 
 about the daily produce from a thousand trees, to which a small 
 quantity of sugar and about one-third of rice is generally added. 
 ^Vhen distilled, a liquor is produced which is called polwakara. A 
 second distillation produces talwakara, a spirit about twenty degrees 
 below proof. When the process has been repeated a third time, 
 arrack of the desired strength is obtained, at first very crude in flavour, 
 but after having been stored in wood for several years it mellows, and 
 even finds favour with Europeans. It is exported from Ceylon to 
 Madras and served to the native troops as a daily ration. 
 
 The arrack trade is entirely under control of the Ceylon Govern- 
 ment, which derives a considerable revenue from the sale of licenses 
 to distillers (each of whom pays a yearly fee of one hundred rupees), 
 and from the annual sale by auction of the right to farm arrack taverns 
 in all parts of the Isle, a privilege which, being annually sold to the 
 highest bidder, of course makes it to his interest to push the odious 
 trade and establish fresh centres of temptation wherever he can pos- 
 sibly do so. Never was the old proverb that V occasion fait le iarron ' 
 better exemplified, and many a planter has good cause to complain 
 of the temptation thus brought to the very door of his coolies, who 
 now too often barter the very food provided for them, in order to 
 obtain fiery liquor.'^ 
 
 * Opportunity makes the thief. 
 
 - I see that, at the auction of arrack rents for 1890, the successful bidder for the 
 privilege of farming Kandy paid 43, coo rupees ; Nuwara Ehya fetched 70,000; wliile 
 the whole of the Central Province was knocked down for 380,000 rupees. All the pro- 
 vinces of the Isle collectively realised 1,803,625, being an increase of 242,171 rupees 
 since 1888. 
 
 But ' the appetite doth grow with that it feeds upon,' and wlien the rents for the 
 Central Provmce were put up for sale by auction from July 1891, to June 1892, with
 
 4:,S TJFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Nor is this true only of the intoxicants natural to the country, 
 Clovernmcnt holds a monopoly of the whole liquor traffic of the Isle, 
 and has therefore a direct interest in pushing the sale of drink. Hence 
 railway refreshment -cars and refreshment-rooms at railway stations 
 are exempt from paying licence, and the stations themselves (which 
 are (Government property) are placarded with advertisements of the 
 whisky which, as has been so truly said, has dug more British graves 
 in Ceylon than malaria, sunstroke, and cholera put together, and there 
 is no doubt that these widely scattered ' suggestions ' are largely 
 responsible for the practice of dram-drinking, which is said to be so 
 much on the increase. 
 
 As regards the natives, who are always so largely influenced 
 by any indication of the will of the ruling power, the mere fact 
 that drinking-places are sanctioned by Government gives them a 
 measure of respectability altogether contrary to unbiassed native 
 opin'on. 
 
 For plain speaking on so grave a subject, I may refer to the 
 official rci)ort on the Negombo district for 1890, in which Mr. 
 Lushington, Assistant Government Agent for the Western Province, 
 expresses his deliberate conviction that by scattering arrack taverns 
 broadcast over the land. Government is itself encouraging the real 
 source of crime, namely, the habits of drunkenness which lead to 
 gambling, cock-fighting, divers forms of theft, cattle-stealing, quarrels, 
 and murders. 
 
 He finds that men who would not go a mile to procure intoxicants 
 yield readily to the temptation when brought to their very doors, and 
 while pointing out that more than half of the total revenue of the 
 AWstern I'rovinre (a[)art from customs and railway receipts) is made 
 u[) of licenses chiefly for the sale of intoxicants and such narcotics as 
 bhang and oi)ium, he proves that an increase in such revenue means 
 simply a corresponding increase in demoralisation and every form of 
 
 the strong ivcomiiicndatioii of the (iovcinniciit Agent io the renters to put in good 
 l)i(ls, and not troulilc (iovernment to call for higher tenders, his adviee was so well 
 received that 470,000 rupees were offered for the lot, being 90,000 rupee.s in excess of 
 the previous year. 
 
 In further proof of the steady increase of this baneful traffic, I may also quote the 
 sales of arrack rents for the North-Western Province in April 1891. At Kurunegala 
 there was a large gathering of renters from all parts of the island, the Government 
 Agent presiding. There was brisk bidding, with an exciting finish. The result was 
 112,200 rupees for the district of Seven Korales {i.e. 14,700 more than Last year) ; 
 Yagampattu and Chilaw districts, 102,000 rupees [i.e. 21,800 mpees more than last 
 year) ; and Puttalam rents w^rc purchased for 35,900 rupees, being an advance of 
 4,000 on last year,
 
 TRINCOMALEE TO GALLE 439 
 
 crime, and increased expenditure on its repression by police and legal 
 machinery. ' Rather than give up a few thousand rupees of revenue, 
 we encourage the people to sink deeper and deeper in crime by 
 increasing their facilities for drinking.' ' 
 
 Mr. Lushington believes that nine-tenths of the serious crimes of 
 the Isle are committed within a mile of a tavern, and that quite one- 
 half arise from the desperation caused by losses at gambling. He 
 says that in the maritime districts every village has its cockpit, every 
 group of villages its gambling den, and near to each is either a tavern 
 or a place for the illicit sale of arrack. 
 
 And here comes in another grave difficulty, for in this strange Isle 
 the very men who have purchased a monopoly for the sale of intoxi- 
 cants are frequently in league with the smugglers and unlicensed 
 arrack-sellers, actually sharing in their profits. Vigilant and con- 
 scientious indeed must be the police who could cope with such a 
 state of things. 
 
 1 I have here spoken only of the pushing of the trade in arrack. A ver}' much 
 graver danger lies in the recent licensing of several opium dens. Here we have indeed 
 ' a little cloud no bigger than a man's hand,' but in view of the appallingly rapid 
 extension of the use of opium in India and Burmah, the small beginning may well 
 alarm all who desire the prosperity of Ceylon. 
 
 On the mainland, England, for the sake of ill-gotten revenue, is actually creating 
 and diligently propagating the fatal habit of opium smoking. Even in Bombay 
 (though the cultivation, of the poppy is prohibited in that Province as being an industry 
 resulting in widespread demoralisation) upwards of 800 persons hold Government 
 licenses for the retail sale of opium, and each licence represents several shops, the 
 licensee being further required, under penalty of a heavy fine, at once to open new 
 shops at the bidding of the chief magistrate of the district, should the latter see any 
 new openings in which the trade may be pushed. 
 
 On each licence is stated the lowest number of lbs. of duty-paid opium which the 
 licensee undertakes to sell per annum. Month by month he gives in his report, and if 
 the quantity sold is less than the amount specified, he is fined five rupees per lb. on the 
 deficiency. If in the following month he can succeed in so pushing his sales as to 
 dispose of an equal amount in excess of his contract, the fine is remitted. Should a 
 rival offer to sell a larger quantity per annum, his licence may be taken from him at 
 three months' notice, and given to the more energetic salesman. Thus he is literally 
 goaded on by the paternal government to force the extension of this iniciuitous traflic. 
 
 For instance, in the small district of Broach, with a total population of 326,930 
 men, women, and children, the licensee undertakes annually to sell by retail 12,492 lbs. 
 (five and a half tons !) of poison. Two years ago his sales were 2,000 lbs. less than 
 his quantity, and the consequent fine was 10,000 ruj^ees. 
 
 In I'"ngland a chemist may only sell an infinitesimal quantity of opium without a 
 doctor's order. In India, any child may purchase ten tolas, which is equal to 1,639 
 grains — a quantity sufficient to kill 270 men ! 
 
 Well may Ceylon pray tu be left free from so great a curse ! 
 
 Copies of the Indian Opium Licence, with explanatory notes, may be obtained 
 gratuitously from Messrs. Dyer Brothers, 31 Paternoster Square, London, E.C,
 
 440 Tiro HAPrV YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 To return to the more legitimate uses of the good cocoa-pahn. 
 Another form in which the nut is used as food (a form, however, 
 more appreciated in the South Seas than in Ceylon) is when, in the 
 early stage of germination, the kernel is transformed into a puffy ball, 
 (juite filling up the shell. 
 
 The said shell furnishes the household drinking-cups, spoons, 
 lami^s, and musical instruments, if I may so describe the clattering 
 castanets. The outermost husk serves as household scrubbing-brushes 
 and fuel, while the thick fibre in which the nut is so securely 
 embedded in the coir used for making ropes, cables, mattresses, nets, 
 brushes, and matting. This is prepared by soaking the husks for a 
 considerable time, if possible, in tanks or pits on the margin of the 
 sea, as salt or brackish water improves the fibre, whereas steeping it 
 in fresh water deteriorates it and creates an obnoxious smell. When 
 thoroughly steeped, the husks are beaten with heavy wooden mallets 
 and then dried in the sun The ropes are all made by hand- 
 machinery, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Galle and Colombo, 
 and are used for shipping, housebuilding, lashing l)ridges, tethering 
 cattle, <S:c. 
 
 So securely is the nut embedded in this outer packing-case, that 
 a hungry man, not provided with a hatchet and uninitiated in the 
 method of extracting it, might very well be sorely tantalised in the 
 midst of plenty. In fact, it requires considerable strength as well as 
 some skill to tear off the hard covering. 
 
 For this purpose near every cocoa-grove strong wooden stakes are 
 driven into the ground, leaving two or three feet above ground. Each 
 stake is cut to a sharp point, and the man who has to skin a cocoa-nut 
 takes it in both hands and violently dashes it on to the stake so as to 
 impale it. Then wrenching it from side to side, he succeeds in 
 tearing off the husk, and obtains the hard nut inside with the three 
 eyes familiar to every British boy. On a large estate this forms a 
 serious item of labour. It is said that the coir is less brittle and of 
 a better quality if the nuts are plucked before they are fully ripe, and 
 these also yield a larger proportion of oil. 
 
 Such are the principal uses of only the flower and fruit of this 
 generous tree. When we come to reckon the very varied purposes 
 to which every separate portion of the leaves, trunk, and root are 
 applied, we find that the Singhalese enumeration of the hundred 
 uses of their beloved palm is no figure of speech, but a practical 
 foct.
 
 TRIXCOMALEE TO GALLE 441 
 
 As further varieties of food, the young buds, when boiled, are 
 eaten as a vegetable something like cabbage, and when a tree is blown 
 down or stricken with lightning, a sort of sago is obtained from the 
 pith at the upper end of the trunk. Such windfalls are only too 
 common, but deliberately to fell a fruit-bearing tree would seem too 
 foolish, seeing that from the time a palm commences bearing, at about 
 ten years of age, it yields its full crop annually for about eighty years. 
 
 In this region of terrific thunderstorms the value of these tall 
 palms as lightning-conductors is inestimable, and many a home has 
 been saved by their superior attraction. 
 
 The Singhalese say that you can build a house and furnish it, or 
 build a ship and freight it, solely from the products of this palm. It 
 would puzzle a European to build a seaworthy vessel without a single 
 nail, but here square-rigged vessels, called dhonies, and large canoes, 
 which resist the heaviest surf, are stitched together with coir yarn, 
 which in salt water is almost imperishal^le. Small canoes are made 
 from a single trunk hollowed out, and balanced by a smaller stem 
 floating alongside ; the cordage, mat-sail, and fishing-net are made of 
 coir ; the torch or chule which lights our night-march through the 
 forest, or which the fisherman burns to attract fish, is made of dried 
 palm-leaves. 
 
 As to the house, the palm trunk supplies all its woodwork, while 
 its thatch is supplied by the leaves plaited so as to form a sort of long 
 narrow mat called cadjan. Garden fences and even small huts are 
 made entirely of these cadjans. From the leaf-stalk is formed the 
 pingo or yoke which a man balances on his shoulder, with his fish or 
 vegetables hanging from either end, or else it can be used as the 
 handle for a cocoa-nut fibre broom. Its thick end answers as the 
 paddle of a canoe, or if soaked like coir it furnishes a strong black 
 fibre like horse-hair, from which ropes and fishing lines are manu- 
 factured. I must not forget to mention that cocoa-nut water mi.xcd 
 with lime produces a strong cement. 
 
 In short, as good George Herbert long ago pithily put it — 
 
 . . The Indian nut alone 
 Is clothing, meat, and trencher, drink and can, 
 Boat, cable, sail, mast, needle, all in one. 
 
 ^^'ell may this gratefiil Isle adopt the cocoa-palm as the emblem on 
 her coinage ! 
 
 A very elegant use of the young leaves is in the decoration of
 
 442 TJVO HAPrV YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 pandals and churches, one tall leaf on each side of a window forming 
 a very effective decoration. Of course, a cocoa-nut blossom is 
 always an exquisite object, but besides the cruel wastefulness of 
 sacrificing a whole cluster of embryo nuts, there is the disadvantage 
 that to the native mind it suggests a charm against evil spirits, for 
 which purpose it is placed over the cradle of the new-born babe, and 
 over the grave of the newly buried. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 SOUTHERN COAST 
 
 Mjitara — The leper king — Leper Hospital — Dondra Head — Tangalle — Mulgirigalla — 
 Hambaiitota — Salt lakes — Magama — Happy hunting-grounds — Kataragania. 
 
 Before turning northward to Colombo I wished to see something of 
 the southern coast of the Isle, and gladly accepted an invitation from 
 the same kind friends who had made our stay in Negombo so 
 pleasant, to visit them in a new home at Matara, a most lovely place 
 at the mouth of the Nilwalla Canga {i.e. the river of blue sand), 
 and only four miles from Dondra Head, which is the southernmost 
 point of the island.' 
 
 Leaving Galle before dayl)rcak l)y the royal mail coach, I had an 
 excpiisite drive of about twenty-five miles, all close by the sea, with 
 its magnificent green waves booming as they broke in dazzling surf 
 on the white sands, only hidden now and again by the wealth of 
 luxuriant vegetation, the whole glorified by the golden light and 
 purple clouds and shadows of early morning, soon replaced by clear 
 sunlight and the vivid blue of sea and sky. 
 
 Certainly one great charm of the tropical habit of always being 
 
 ' During tny two years in the Isle this family was subjected to all the trouble and 
 expense of moving three times, that is to say, of selling off their furniture (of course at 
 considerable loss), renting and furnishing a new home, and finding new servants. 
 
 This system of continually, and on the shortest notice, moving Cjvil servants from 
 one corner of the Isle to another, either as a ' permanent ' appointment or as locum 
 /iticns for some one temporarily transferred to other work, is a very grave drawback. 
 No sooner has a man begun to understand his duties in one district, and to know 
 something of the people aromid him, than he is liable to be uprooted and ordered off 
 to take up an entirely different line of work, perhaps among people of another race and 
 language.
 
 SOUTHERN COAST 443 
 
 out before sunrise and again at sunset is that we do profit by all 
 Nature's gorgeous but too fleeting displays of colour, which so many 
 people in Britain never see except in winter, simply because they are 
 asleep in the mornings, or tied and bound by the evening solemnities 
 of dinner. Happily the latter offers no hindrance in Ceylon, where 
 the sun sets all the year round at six o'clock. 
 
 Much as is written of tropical sunrises, I have seen just as many 
 in Britain, the gorgeousness of which has been quite indescribable. 
 This very morning, in September, looking due east from my window 
 in Scotland at 4.30 a.m., I looked out on a horizon of intense orange 
 verging into sea-green, while the whole upper sky was covered with 
 the loveliest rose-coloured clouds on a pearly-grey ground, and against 
 all this the trees and wooded hills stood out almost black. But when 
 the sun rose at 5 a.m., though the sky was lovely, it was not at all 
 exciting, and by the time the household awoke, all was quite dull and 
 commonplace. So that of these ever-new glories, as of many other 
 things, I can only say people do not see them because they do not 
 look for them. 
 
 Sixteen miles from Galle the coach halted at the pretty village of 
 Belligama, now called Welligama, i.e. the Sand Village, at the head 
 of a beautiful bay, wherein lay a crowd of picturesque fishing boats. 
 There too lies an island known as Crow Island, on account of the 
 multitude of crows' which come every night to roost in the tall cocoa- 
 palms, returning to the mainland at early dawn to forage for them- 
 selves wherever human homes suggest a prospect of obtaining food 
 by fair means or foul. 
 
 The small red-tiled, white-pillared rest-houseis pleasantly situated 
 so as to command a good view of the sea, and stands in a shady 
 garden, where large bread-fruit and other trees are matted with 
 graceful climbing plants, hanging in festoons from the boughs. Un- 
 fortunately, there arc, it is said, rather a numerous supply of black 
 scorpions to be found about the place ; but then in Ceylon one has 
 always to keep instinctive watch against noxious creatures of various 
 sorts, with the result that one very rarely comes in contact with any. 
 
 'i'he chief interest of the place centres in a statue about twelve 
 feet in height, sculptured in a niche cut into a huge rock boulder, and 
 shaded by kitool and cocoa-palms and flowering shrubs. The statue 
 is that of the Kushta Rajah or I>eper King, supposed from his dress to 
 have been a Singhalese king of the twelfth century — some say 589. 
 
 ' Con Its s/>Iciidcns.
 
 444 T'lrO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Tradition is somewhat uncertain concerning his merits, for according 
 to one version, it was he who first imported the cocoa-palm to Ceylon, 
 and here planted a large tract of the coast ; whereas another legend 
 tells how it was revealed to the afflicted king, that if he visited the 
 coast of Ceylon and worshipped the relic in the Buddhist shrine at 
 ])elligama, and further ate of the fruit of a tree then unknown to him, 
 which proved to be the cocoa-palm, he would be healed of l)is sore 
 disease. And he was healed, and as his thank-offering he richly 
 endowed the temple at Wclligama. 
 
 Sad to say, the ' tree of blessing ' has lost its magic power, and 
 the poor lepers of Ceylon arc deemed as incurable as those of other 
 lands. Happily they are not very numerous, only about i,8oo in a 
 population of 3,000,000, but it is sad to learn that their number is 
 steadily increasing. 
 
 In Ceylon there is no law of compulsory segregation, though all 
 sufferers are encouraged to seek an asylum in the leper hospital at 
 Hendala, about four miles from Colombo, where 208 are well cared 
 for, and are fed and clothed at the expense of the colony. Within 
 the last few years two small chapels have been erected for their 
 benefit, one for the Roman Catholic patients, the other (the gift of 
 Mrs. Copleston, wife of the present Bishop of Colombo) for the use 
 of all Christians, of whatever denomination, whose pastors may be 
 willing to hold services in that sad asylum. About 200 more are 
 at large in Colombo. 
 
 In this rock-hewn statue the attitude of the hands is peculiar. 
 Both are uplifted from the elbow ; but whereas the left hand is closed, 
 the right is open except that the first finger meets the thumb, as if 
 his Majesty were about to indulge in a pinch of snuff. This is note- 
 worthy, because in Buddhist statues the first and second fingers alone 
 are generally upraised, in the conventional attitude of benediction. 
 
 On my return journey, driving leisurely, I was able to secure a 
 picture of the Leper King, and also to note (for the thousandth time) 
 the efficacy of one simple palm-leaf, which you must remember is 
 about fourteen feet in length, knotted round the stem of the parent 
 tree for the protection of the tempting clusters of cocoa-nuts, which 
 but for that leaf would surely prove irresistible to thirsty wayfarers. 
 But the tree so marked is placed under special protection of some 
 guardian spirit, and superstition prevails where honesty might fail, as 
 it is firmly believed that anyone eating of the fruit would suffer 
 severely. Sometimes the knotted leaf denotes that the tree is
 
 ■ SOVTHl^RX COAST 445 
 
 dedicated to s;ome shrine, Roman Catholic, Buddhist, or Hindoo, in 
 which case a selection of the finest nuts is sent as an offering, or 
 sometimes oil is made from the nuts to burn before the altar. 
 
 Cordial was the welcome that awaited me in a delightfully situated 
 two-storied bungalow on the very brink of the beautiful Nilwalla River. 
 From its cool upper verandah, where we daily met for very early 
 breakfast, we looked down on a wilderness of glossy large-leafed plants 
 to the reaches of the river, all embowered in grassy groves of most 
 luxuriant palms of all ages, leaning far over the water, with here and 
 there beds of flowering reeds and tall water-grasses and shrubs. 
 
 I found most fascinating sketching ground at every turn, both far 
 and near, and only wish it were in the power of words to convey any 
 idea of those charming scenes, in all their lovely changes of colours, 
 at the ' outgoing of morning and evening,' and also in the calm 
 beauty of full moonlight. I think the most attractive of all was the 
 meeting of the ' broad, and deep, and still ' waters of the river with those 
 of the heaving ocean, the faithful palms enfolding the stream to the 
 very last, as if loth to let it glide away. Doubtless such rivers as 
 these carry many a floating nut far out to sea, perhaps to be washed 
 ashore and take root on some distant isle. 
 
 So great was the charm of quietly boating in such surroundings, 
 that it needed some effort to turn elsewhere, although we found beauty 
 on every side. At Matara, as indeed in all the chief towns or villages 
 along this coast, the hand of the Dutch is still visible in houses and 
 fortifications, and the ramparts of a small fort built of coral-rock were 
 a pleasant point from which to watch the breaking waves bathing the 
 roots of the cocoa-palms overhanging one of the many lovely bays 
 which form so attractive a feature of these shores.' 
 
 Within the fort is the old Dutch church, originally built for the 
 garrison, but now used by civilians of different denominations, 
 Presbyterian and Episcopal, at different hours. 
 
 A very romantic tradition attaches to Matara respecting a certain 
 King Kutara Daas, who, thirteen hundred years ago, delighted in 
 composing verses. This royal poet having written a very graceful 
 couplet, added beneath his lines a promise of great reward to whoever 
 should comi)lcte the stanza. The poet Kalidas saw the couplet, and 
 added another, which he committed to the care of a lady of evil 
 
 1 On May 29, 1891, a very singular phenomenon occurred at Matara, namely, n 
 shower 0/ red rain whicli fell on the town, extending over a radius of about two miles. 
 Some of this strange rain-water was preserved by tiie wondering natives.
 
 446 Tll'O IIAPPV YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 reputation, who resolved to secure the reward for herself, and so she 
 murdered the poet and vowed that the lines were her own. 
 
 The king, however, recognised the master-hand, and having 
 detected the murder and discovered the body of the poet, he had it 
 unearthed and gave him a noble funeral pyre. When it was ablaze, 
 he himself rushed into the flames, that he might thus be reunited 
 to his friend. Thereupon his five queens likewise immolated them- 
 selves, and thus followed their lord. This happened in the year a.d. 
 522, when seven sacred Bo-trees were planted over their seven tombs, 
 which continued to be held in honour till 1783, when a ruthless 
 Dutchman cut these venerable trees and used the tombs as building 
 material ! But though now only a plantation of cocoa-palms, the 
 place still retains its old name of Hat-bodin, 'the seven Bo-trees.' 
 
 One of our most interesting expeditions was an early morning 
 drive to Dondra Head, by a coast road all of the same character, 
 along a shore of wave-kissed palms. Two thousand years ago this 
 southernmost point of the Isle was a place of exceeding sanctity, 
 known as Devi-nuwara, 'the city of the gods,' also called Tanaveram. 
 A magnificent temple to Vishnu, as incarnate in Rama Chandra, is 
 known to have existed here in the seventh century — a temple so vast 
 that passing ships mistook it for a city. The great central pagoda 
 and towers were roofed with plates of gilded copper, and the temple, 
 wherein were stone and bronze images of a thousand idols, was sur- 
 rounded by cloisters and colonnades and terraced gardens, where 
 flowering shrubs were cultivated to supply fragrant blossoms for the 
 daily offerings. 
 
 Ibn Batuta, a celebrated Moorish traveller, who, starting from 
 Tangiers in 1344, devoted twenty-eight years to travel, came to 
 Dondra and saw this wonderful building. As a good Mahommedan, 
 he could not himself enter an idolatrous temple, but was told that one 
 of the idols, the size of a man, was made of pure gold, and had for eyes 
 two rubies so large and so lustrous that at night they shone like lan- 
 terns. There were then a thousand Brahmans attached to the temple, 
 and five hundred dancing and singing girls. The town, which he calls 
 Dinewar, was then a large place inhabited by merchants, and was all 
 temple property. 
 
 Pilgrims crowded to worship at a shrine second in renown only to 
 that of the holy footprint on Adam's Peak, and the consequent wealth 
 of the temple in gold and gems, ivory and sandal-wood, was such 
 as to awaken the covetousness of the Portuguese, who, in 1587, under
 
 SOUTHERN COAST 447 
 
 De Souza d'Arronches, devastated this coast, committing indescribable 
 cruelties. Having plundered all treasures, destroyed the idols, and 
 burnt their gorgeous cars, and whatever else could be so consumed, 
 the soldiers proceeded to demolish the temple and level with the 
 ground its arches, gates, and towers ; finally, as a crowning indignity, 
 they slaughtered cows in the sacred courts, thereby defiling the very 
 ground for ever, and thus the famous temple was reduced to a shape- 
 less mass of ruins. 
 
 There still remain about 200 granite columns which formed part 
 of the colonnades, and also a finely-sculptured gateway, the lintel of 
 which, when struck, gives a ringing sound like a bell. Other stone 
 carvings lie scattered about over a considerable space, but, sad to say, 
 regardless of all antiquarian interest, these ruins have been regarded 
 as a convenient quarry, and while some sculptured pillars have been 
 carried off to act as milestones, others have been taken by the native 
 fishermen to construct a pier. 
 
 Of course the Brahmans were not allowed to monopolise a place 
 so holy, consequently the Buddhists here erected one of their earli- 
 est dagobas, the renovation of which by successive sovereigns was 
 recorded in historic annals. Now this ancient relic-shrine is likewise 
 a ruin, and the modern worshippers of Buddha, Vishnu, and Siva 
 make common cause, the shrines of the Hindoo deities flanking those 
 of Buddha and his disciples in the Buddhist temple. 
 
 Once a year, at the time of the midsummer full moon, this quiet 
 village is the scene of a great religious festival and fair, combined at- 
 tractions which draw thousands of pilgrims and other folk to Dondra 
 Head for a week's holiday ; and very picturesque these crowds must 
 be, all in their gayest attire, camped beneath the palms and along the 
 shore. 
 
 Rows of temporary sheds are erected and rapidly transformed into 
 hundreds of small shops for the sale of all manner of food, fruit, cakes, 
 curry-stuffs, confectionery, native books, Tangalla brass-ware, tortoise- 
 shell combs, tobacco-leaves, betel-leaves and areca-nuts, cloth, cheap 
 jewellery, and toys. 
 
 The religious ceremony is a Perahara, when the shrine containing 
 some precious relic is carried round the village in solemn procession, 
 followed by lay and ecclesiastical officials in their Kandyan state dress, 
 and escorted by a troop of trumpeters, shell-blowers, and tom-tom 
 beaters, making their usual deafening noise. 
 
 In 1889 the Queen's birthday was celebrated by a very different
 
 448 Tiro HAPPY YEARS LV CEYLON 
 
 event, namely, laying the last stone to complete the finest lighthouse 
 on the coast, one of a series extending from Colombo right round the 
 southern coast of Ceylon as for as the 'Great 'and 'Little Basses,' 
 ^vithin such moderate distances of one another as to afford all possible 
 security in navigation. The foundations of this latest addition to the 
 lights of Ceylon were hewn in the solid rock at the close of 1887, the 
 Jubilee year, and when this finishing touch was given, the summit of 
 the tower stood 176 feet above the sea-level — a lonely beacon-star for 
 the guiding and warning of many a vessel in years to come. 
 
 On the day of our visit, however, all was very quiet. We invested 
 in some curious very coarse red pottery, peculiar to this place, some 
 specimens representing hideous animals. Having inspected the fort 
 built by the Dutch when they had succeeded in driving out the Portu- 
 guese, we next strolled to the shore, a succession of lovely bays clothed 
 to the water's edge with luxuriant palms and strange screw-pines. I 
 selected as my sketching-ground a very striking pile of shapeless ruins, 
 literally rising from the waves. Theyare apparently those of a smaller 
 temple, but now are merely a heap of tumbled stones and pillars 
 sculptured in alternate square and octagonal sections. 
 
 The scene gained additional interest from the fact that this head- 
 land is the southernmost land of which we know anything — not 
 even a little coral islet is known to lie between this and the South 
 Pole. 
 
 Presently my companions summoned me to breakfast in a cosy 
 bungalow which had been decorated in our honour with palm-leaves 
 and cocoa-nuts. We were glad to rest in its cool shade till the noon- 
 day heat was over, and then returned to the lonely ruins on the shore, 
 where we lingered till they and the feathery palms alike showed ' dark 
 against day's golden death,' when we started on our beautiful home- 
 ward drive in the mellow moonlight. 
 
 Those now wave-washed ruins of the ancient temple are suggestive 
 of the ceaseless battles between land and water, in which Ocean has 
 won so many victories. 
 
 There seems little doubt that in early days this beautiful island 
 was of far larger extent than it now is, and that by a series of encroach- 
 ments of the sea it has been gradually reduced. Native traditions tell 
 how it was originally 5, 1 20 miles in circumference, and how, byaterrible 
 judgment of Heaven, it was reduced to less than 3,000. According to 
 the legendary records of the Ramayana, this calamity occurred soon 
 after the death of Ravana, is.c. 2387, a date which curiously approxi-
 
 SOUTHERN COAST 449 
 
 iTiateS to that generally received as the year of the Deluge. It is also 
 singular that this measurement should so nearly coincide with that 
 recorded by Pliny as having been taken B.C. 200. The sea, however, 
 not content with having swallowed up half the island, still crept 
 onward, and the native annals tell how, year by year, fresh lands were 
 submerged, till there remained only the comparatively small extent 
 we now see, measuring about 800 miles in circumference. 
 
 A multitude of lesser islands are also said to have disappeared. 
 Probably they lay between Ceylon and the Maldive and Lakadive 
 islands, and, forming one great kingdom, may have given to Ceylon the 
 name, by which it was anciently known, of Lanka or Laka-diva, 'the 
 ten thousand islands.' Certain it is that, at the longitude assigned by 
 old records to the great city of Sri-Lanka-poora, the capital of the 
 island, there is now only a wide expanse of blue waters. 
 
 It was in this city that Ravana, the mighty king of the Isle, was 
 besieged by Rama, a warrior prince of Oude, whose beautiful wife, Sita, 
 had been carried off by Ravana, in revenge for insults offered to his 
 sister. This city of palaces had seven fortified walls, and many towers 
 with battlements of brass. Moreover, it was surrounded by a great 
 ditch, wherein flowed the salt waters of the ocean. Plence we may 
 infer that the sea had not much ado to encroach on so confiding a 
 city. The native legends both of Ceylon and India tell how, ' 'twixt 
 the gloamin' and the mirk,' the glittering light from these brazen 
 battlements still gleams from the ocean depths, and being reflected 
 on the dark sky overhead, causes the afterglow. 
 
 The Brahmans declare that this terrible overflow of the mighty 
 waters was sent to punish the impious Ravana, who had dared to fight 
 against Rama, the peerless king and warrior. 
 
 Further calamities befel the Isle about the year B.C. 306, when 
 much of the west coast was submerged. This was in the reign of 
 King Devenipiatissa, who held his court at Kelany, a town which 
 stood seven leagues inland from the point where the River Kelany 
 then entered the sea. According to tradition. King Tissa had good 
 cause to suspect his beautiful queen of an intrigue with his own 
 brother,' who accordingly fled to Gampola, whence he endeavoured 
 
 ' In view of the custom of polyandry, formerly prcvak-iU throughout the Isle, 
 Tissa's jealousy was unjustifiable, as every woman was entitled to half-a-dozen hus- 
 bands, who, as a matter of preference, ought all to be of the same family— brothers if 
 possible. King Wijayo Bahu VII., who was the reigning monarch at C'otta, near the 
 Kelany River, at the time when the Portuguese built their first fort at Colombo, had 
 a wife in common with his brother. 
 
 C G
 
 450 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 to send a message to the ciucen written on a neatly rolled-up palm 
 leaf. 
 
 This was conveyed by a messenger disguised as a priest, who was 
 to gain access to the palace on a day when a multitude of priests were 
 to receive the royal alms. Having attracted the queen's notice, the 
 messenger dropped the letter, but ere she could raise it the king seized 
 and read it. In his fury he declared that the intrigue thus proven was 
 sanctioned by the high-priest himself, who accordingly was seized and 
 thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, while the queen was pinioned 
 and thrown into the river. 
 
 Ere long the innocence of the priest was established, but it was too 
 late to avert the wrath of the gods, who caused the sea to encroach on 
 the west coast of the isle so rapidly, that the unhappy king strove to 
 avert the terrible punishment from his peoi)le by the sacrifice of his 
 own beautiful virgin daughter, Sudha-Dewi, whom he secured in a 
 covered canoe overlaid with pure gold, and having inscribed this 
 ark with the title ' A Royal Maiden,' he launched it on the raging 
 waters. 
 
 The spirits of air and water protected the maiden thus committed 
 to their care, and landed her safely on a distant shore at Totalu Ferry, 
 where the ark was found by some fishermen. The prince of the land, 
 Ka-wan-tissa Rajah, was so fascinated by the beauty of the damsel, 
 that he married her, and changed her name to Wihari-Dewi. It was 
 her son, Dootoogaimoonoo, who afterwards expelled the Malabars and 
 restored the supremacy of the Singhalese. 
 
 But King Tissa's sacrifice proved of no avail, for the encroaching 
 waters never stayed their advance till they had swallowed up 640 
 flourishing villages and permanently submerged a strip of country ex- 
 tending twenty miles inland, and including some of the richest arable 
 land. According to the Rajavali, no less than 100,000 large towns 
 and 1,370 fishers' villages were then destroyed. 
 
 That this calamity was due to volcanic agency seems evident, for 
 the tradition further records, that when the king himself went on his 
 
 Polyandry and the murder of superfluous female infants were the recognised means 
 of checking the increase of population among a race too indolent to cultivate more 
 land than was necessary for their own support. Thanks to Portuguese and Dutch 
 influence, these obnoxious customs were soon abandoned in the maritime provinces, 
 but in the mountainous Central Province the ancient Kandyan custom prevailed till 
 quite recently, when British marriage-laws were framed with a view to bringing it into 
 discredit. 
 
 On the similar custom of certain mountain tribes in Hindostan, see ' In the Hima- 
 layas," p. 406, published by C'halto cS: Windus,
 
 SOUTHERN COAST 451 
 
 elephant to watch the progress of the raging waters, the earth opened 
 and vomited flames wliich swallowed him up, and he was no more 
 seen. 
 
 Of the encroachments of the sea on the Coast of Coromandel 
 and other parts of Southern India, we have visible proof in the fact of 
 its having stayed half-way in the act of washing away at least one old 
 city which now lies half beneath the waves. ^ These have encroached 
 to the very doors of the great temples, but sculptures and pillars still 
 jutting up from the waters suggest how much of the old city has 
 been altogether submerged. Some of the aged natives of the last 
 generation remembered how in their youth, while sailing far out at 
 sea, they could distinguish the forms of temples and other buildings 
 lying deep beneath the waves. Some of these had cupolas of 
 copper-gilt, which glittered in the early sunlight, but had gradually 
 ceased to do so, and now the fishes vainly peer into those clear 
 depths— the city is no longer visible. They suppose that the copper 
 has corroded or that the foundations have given .way. 
 
 To return to our peaceful modern life at Matara on the brink of 
 the broad beautiful river. In such surroundings, rendered yet more 
 attractive by the kindness of many friends, a fortnight slipped quickly 
 by, when we started in force, a whole family party, great and small, 
 to visit a hospitable Scotsman, the District Judge at Tangalle, a 
 pretty little seaside town about twenty miles farther east. Once 
 more we followed the ' palm o'ershadowed way ' along the shore, 
 and facing the sun as it rose in glory from the clear calm ocean, 
 which shone like a dazzling mirror, so that we were glad to rest our 
 eyes by gazing into the shady groves to catch pretty glimpses of 
 home-life in the native huts. 
 
 We met many native vehicles, always driven by picturesque 
 people, and drawn by handsome oxen, white or brown, drawing their 
 heavy loads simply by the pressure of the yoke on their much- 
 enduring hump. 
 
 Presently (happily when we were near a rest-house) the tyre 
 came off one of our wheels, so we had to halt some hours for 
 necessary repairs, and amused ourselves by watching the fishermen 
 drawing their large seine-nets, several canoes uniting their forces to 
 draw one net on shore. They work all through the burning midday 
 hours to an accompaniment of melancholy song, sometimes indeed 
 pathetic, at others wild, but never very musical. As we rested 
 
 ' Malia-bali-poor, or Mavaliiniraiii. 
 
 G G2
 
 452 Tiro HAPPY YEARS AV CEYLON 
 
 beneath the cool shade of a great banyan-trcc, kind natives brought 
 us a gift of ripe plantains and a great bowl of delicious creamy 
 buffalo-mik, a dainty generally shunned by Europeans, on the ground 
 that buffaloes are not strict vegetarians. 
 
 AVhen the glare and heat drove us to seek shelter in the rest- 
 house, we consoled ourselves by watching the antics of many small 
 squirrels who scampered fearlessly about the verandah — pretty little 
 creatures, dark-grey, with three white stripes down the back. 
 
 Indoors, the spiders and darling little lizards, ' Geckoes,' ' reigned 
 unmolested — the former splendid specimens of a large dark-coloured 
 hairy spider, with ten thick hairy legs. To the unaccustomed eye 
 they are hideous and alarming, but they really are very useful, as 
 they wage war on cockroaches and such-like unwelcome intruders. 
 'I'hey have the oddest way of periodically shedding their whole skin. 
 As the creature grows, its skin fails to expand, so it splits down 
 the back, and then the spider shakes off this outgrown overcoat 
 and steps out in all the glory of a new skin, leaving the old one 
 perfect (but for the one long split), and for the moment the spider 
 and the empty case look like twins. 
 
 One enormous spider, the Afygale fasciafa, sometimes miscalled 
 a tarantula, is not content with such small game as cockroaches, 
 but occasionally devotes its energies to ensnaring lizards. It has 
 even been accused of capturing tiny birds, but this charge is not 
 proven. It is a very unpleasant looking creature, its body and legs 
 being covered with long dark-brown hair, and it is so large, that when 
 its legs are extended a full-grown specimen will cover a circle of 
 about eight inches in diameter. 
 
 Instead of weaving a web after the manner of spiders in general, 
 this curious creature builds for itself a sort of tubular nest, generally 
 in the crevice of some old wall or gravelly bank, and for this it spins 
 a waterproof lining of the very finest silk, and furthermore constructs 
 a most ingenious door, which opens and shuts on hinges, and 
 which it can close from within and successfully exclude unwelcome 
 intruders. 2 
 
 But of all the spiders (and they are very numerous and varied), 
 none struck me as more curious than a family with tiny bodies and 
 ridiculously long black legs, so slender as literally to resemble coarse 
 
 > Platydactyhis. 
 
 - See nest of the Californian tarp.ntula, in ' Ginnite Cmgs of Cnlifornia,' p. 320, by 
 C. !•". Uordon-Cumming.
 
 SOUTHERN COAST 453 
 
 hairs. I have seen these in some very neglected rest-houses, and 
 sometimes on gravelly banks in the hills, in such multitudes that 
 the wall or bank seemed to quiver with the tremulous movement of 
 these little bunches of black hair. One long-legged house-spider 
 always reminded me of the old woman who lived in a shoe, because 
 of its innumerable family of the tiniest perfect little spiders, which it 
 carries about with it in a cocoon supported under its legs. When 
 frightened, it drops this little silky cradle, and out scamper a 
 regiment of most active little creatures. I used always to wonder 
 whether the family was ever reassembled, especially as destructive 
 human beings so often with one rough touch rend the dainty nest 
 woven with such skill. 
 
 The lizards, of which there are several varieties, green, grey, or 
 chocolate-coloured, spotted or streaked, and ranging from four to 
 seven inches in length, are very abundant on the sea-coast, and 
 every house has its own colony of these pretty little harmless 
 creatures, which suddenly peep out from some unexpected corner, 
 chirping their little note like ' Cheeka ! cheeka ! ' On their feet are 
 small suckers, which enable them to walk inverted like flies as they 
 scamper about on the canvas ceilings in pursuit of insects. Occa- 
 sionally they get on to a loose rag of canvas or a flake of whitewash, 
 and fall violently to the ground or on to the table, and, like Bo- 
 peep's sheep, leave their tails behind them, wriggling independently, 
 while the proprietor takes himself off as fast as he can. 
 
 In the crevices of the walls they lay fascinating little white eggs 
 like sugar-plums, and from these, when hatched by the sun, come 
 forth most minute perfect lizards, who at once scamper off in search 
 of food. 
 
 Some of these seaside places are occasionally haunted by musk- 
 rats {alias shrews), wliich utter shrill little cries while diligently 
 hunting for insects, especially for crickets, which are their special 
 weakness ; but they are an intolerable nuisance, as they taint every- 
 thing they touch. 
 
 By the time a blacksmith had been found and our repairs 
 complete, a furious rain-storm had set in, which never abated all the 
 afternoon ; so there was nothing for it but to face it ; but right glad 
 we were when we reached our journey's end, and were hospitably 
 received and dried. Then followed a wild wet night, and the 
 rickety Venetians rattled and shook with every gust of rushing wind ; 
 but loud above all minor voices qf the stopm rcsoun<1cd the rq^r qf
 
 454 T'^^'O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 the mighty waves as they thundered on the shore ; for at Tangalle, 
 unHke most of the harl)ours of Ceylon, there is no bar to check their 
 landward rush. 
 
 As if to atone for this night of passion, the days that followed 
 were each enchanting. I awoke to find myself in a comfortable old 
 bungalow, with wide-pillared verandah and red-tiled roof, delightfully 
 situated beneath the cool shade of large trees on the very brink of 
 the sea, from which the glorious sun was just rising 
 
 In one uncluudcd blaze of living light. 
 
 The charms of that shore, with the (^uaintly-built canoes, with 
 great outriggers and nets hung up to dry, and the picturesque groups 
 of brown figures (fisher-folk, and women carrying red water-jars on 
 their heads and children astride on one hip), to say nothing of the 
 always irresistible attraction of shell-strewn sands, held me captive 
 for some days. There was such a sense of peace in finding a cosy 
 resting-place at the foot of some dark tree, w^hose great boughs 
 extended right over the sands, and almost dipped into the now 
 gently rippling wavelets. 
 
 About fifteen miles inland from Tangalle lies the celebrated old 
 Buddhist monastery and rock-temple of Mulgirigalla, where, to my 
 great delight, I found that our kind host had made all arrangements 
 for our reception. A beautiful drive brought us to the Goagalla or 
 Iguana Rock, whence we obtained a splendid view of the sacred 
 crag, a huge square red rock, towering to a height of 350 feet from 
 the brink of a dark-blue lakelet, which gleamed like a sapphire in its 
 setting of luxuriant tropical foliage. The flat summit is crowned by 
 a great white dagoba of the usual dome-shape, containing a precious 
 relic of some early Buddhist saint or hero. Somewhat lower, con- 
 spicuously placed on the face of the crag, are the red-tiled monastic 
 buildings, nestling among fragrant flowering shrubs. 
 
 The mighty crag is perpendicular on three sides, but on the 
 fourth the ascent is easy, flights of steps being hewn at the steepest 
 parts. Where the carriage-drive ended we found chairs with bearers 
 waiting to carry us up to the monastery, where we were most 
 courteously received by the high-priest and sundry monks, who 
 escorted us to the famous temples. These are simply a series of 
 overhanging rock-ledges, partially built up so as to form artificial 
 caves, decorated in colour in the same style as those at Dambulla, 
 but on a much smaller scale. Within these are colossal images of
 
 SOUTHERN COAST 455 
 
 Buddha, one of which, a huge recumbent figure, resting beneath the 
 shadow of the dark maroon-coloured rock, and shaded by the h'ght 
 foliage of a sacred peepul-tree, formed a very impressive foreground 
 to a blue distance of endless forests extending to the far-away ocean. 
 
 Mulgirigalla has been held in veneration from the earliest ages of 
 Buddhism. In Singhalese chronicles of B.C. 137 it was referred to 
 as being already a very sacred shrine, and throughout the twenty 
 centuries that have glided away since then, with all their manifold 
 changes, the praises of Buddha have been ceaselessly sung by the 
 yellow-robed brethren of this rock-monastery. 
 
 Comfortable quarters having been assigned to us for the night, 
 we were able to wander about at leisure, enjoying each picturesque 
 combination of dark rocks, red-tiled buildings, brown priests robed 
 in yellow, and wonderfully varied foliage, all in vivid light and 
 shadow. One quiet corner especially attracted me, where, among 
 the great rock-boulders and overshadowed by fragrant temple-trees, 
 daturas, plantains, kitool, areca, and other palms, are the fine old 
 tombs containing the ashes of cremated high-priests who have lived 
 and died in this peaceful spot — 
 
 The world forgetting, 
 By the world forgot. 
 
 Overhead a troop of merry monkeys were at play in a dark jak- 
 tree, laden with enormous fruit hanging from the branches and trunk. 
 In short, there was much to tempt the pencil at every turn. The 
 view from the summit is magnificent, either looking southward over 
 the Hambantota district to the blue ocean, or inland to the mountain 
 ranges of Kataragama and Uva, while in the far distance beyond the 
 high table-land of the Horton Plains towers Adam's Peak, the holy 
 of holies. We rejoiced in all this beauty as seen in the changing 
 lights of sunset, followed by the quiet starlight, and then again in the 
 stillness of the dawn, and realised how calmly life might glide on in 
 such an eyrie. Nevertheless certain broken palm-trees snapped in two 
 suggested how fiercely the winds must often rave around this lofty crag. 
 
 Following the seaboard eastward from Tangalla to Hambantota, a 
 distance of about twenty-five miles, the whole character of the scenery 
 changes. Luxuriant vegetation is replaced by a mere sprinkling of 
 parched scrub and scanty grass on a dead flat expanse of white sand, 
 which seems to dance in the quivering mirage produced by the 
 intense heat of the glaring sun.
 
 456 Tiro iiArrv years in ceylon 
 
 Here and there, on rocky islands or on the shore, a few isolated 
 palms seem as if they had been banished from the company of their 
 fellows, to dwell among thorny wild date palms, fantastic screw pines, 
 with their strange stilt like roots, their forked cylindrical trunks, and 
 quaint whorls of drooping spiral leaves, for ever rustling and swaying 
 with every breath of air, and grotesque euphorbias like gigantic 
 candelabra, the ghostliest of all plants when seen in the moonlight, or 
 dark against a red sunset sky. 
 
 The most characteristic feature of the district is the chain of 
 shallow lagoons, which furnish about one-fifth of the salt supply of the 
 island. There are about half-a-dozen of these lakes, separated from 
 the sea by a high sandbank clothed with thorny impenetrable jungle. 
 Some are several miles in circumference. Their waters are a solution 
 of the saltest brine, which precipitates and crystallises at the bottom 
 and round the edges, so that when seen from any height, these blue 
 lakes seem to be edged with dazzling white surf. 
 
 Beneath the blazing summer sun evaporation is so rapid that the 
 lakes partially dry up, leaving a beach of the purest white salt six or 
 eight inches in depth, the bed of the lake being equally coated. Salt 
 being (as I mentioned when describing the artificial saltpans at 
 Puttalam) a Government monopoly and a considerable source of 
 revenue, the lakes are guarded by watchers, so that no man may help 
 himself to this necessary of life. 
 
 So for the greater part of the year these shallow lagoons are utterly 
 undisturbed, and afford sanctuary to innumerable birds and other shy 
 creatures. Great mobs of snowy pelicans and groups of delicately 
 rosy flamingoes stand reflected in the still waters, the latter changing 
 to crimson as they rise and display their brilliant under-wings. Many 
 crocodiles bask on the shores. These are of a peculiarly harmless 
 kind, and, strange to say, they are never known to have attacked any 
 of the salt-collectors who so audaciously in\adc their (juict retreat. 
 
 Whether the stagnation of life in such still waters has a soothing 
 effect on their inhabitants, I cannot say, but it is a well-authenticated 
 fact that the crocodiles which live in the lakes and tanks of Ceylon 
 are by no means so dangerous as those which haunt the rivers, the 
 latter being a source of constant dread to the natives, as are also the 
 sharks, which occasionally venture some way up the broad mouth of 
 the rivers in pursuit of fish, and render bathing exceedingly dangerous. 
 The Singhalese, however, assert that sharks only attack human beings 
 at certain times, so that when man is not in season, they bathe with
 
 SOUTHERN COAST 457 
 
 confidence. ^^'hen possible, however, they hire a charmer to recite 
 incantations, which are supposed to render the brutes harmless ; 
 such services are specially sought by the divers, whose work leads 
 them right into Shark- land. 
 
 The salt harvest is generally gathered in the month of August, 
 but the exact time depends on the weather, for it is a precarious 
 crop ; and whereas in a very dry season the amount collected and 
 safely stored may be very large, unseasonable rains may melt it all 
 away and leave a very poor return — in some cases even none. Thus 
 in the North Province, in 1876, the salt harvest yielded 151,718 cwts. 
 In the following year there was absolutely none, and in thej'ear after 
 only 11,772 cwts. So in this Southern Province, in 1878, the salt 
 crop proved a total failure, whereas two years later 136,757 cwts. 
 were safely gathered. 
 
 The method of collecting is first to gather the deposit on the 
 shore, and then, by wading into the lakes, collect that which has formed 
 under water — a method grievous to those employed, as, after a few 
 days' work, the intense salt of the water excoriates the feet and legs, 
 causing severe pain. Much of this work is done by the convicts 
 from the Hambantota gaol. The salt thus obtained is brought ashore 
 in baskets, and built up into great piles, which are protected from 
 rain by a thick thatch of cocoa-palm leaves till the salt can be carted 
 away to the Government storehouses, whence, after the lapse of three 
 or four months, it is sold to merchants, who supply the retail dealers, 
 the Government profit on the transaction being about 900 per cent, 
 on the outlay. 
 
 So rigidly has the price of salt been maintained, that for such 
 purposes as manuring the land, preserving hides, and fish-curing 
 it was for long altogether prohibitive, and it is only quite recently 
 that fish-curing grounds have been established at Hambantota, 
 where, under strict Government supervision, salt is supplied at a 
 nominal price to encourage a native trade in dried salted fish, which 
 hitherto has been imported from the Maldive Islands or the coast 
 of India to an annual value of about 900,000 rupees. 
 
 The scenery around Hambantota, though not without interest, is 
 certainly not attractive. The Government Agent's house and court 
 stand on a hot bare hill, looking on the one hand to a long ridge of 
 red drifting sandhills and scrubby jungle, on the other to the heavy 
 breakers thundering on the white beach. On a rocky promontory 
 stands a fortified tower, which overlooks the anchorage where lie the
 
 4S8 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 small vessels which come to ship the salt from the salt-water lakes. 
 From this tower you can overlook the sandy world around, in strong 
 contrast with the vivid blues of sea, sky, distant mountains, and salt 
 lakes, the latter edged with a glittering crust of white, and all set in a 
 dark framework of sombre jungle. But except in the early morning, 
 or late afternoon, the heat is grilling. 
 
 About fifteen miles farther along the sea-coast is the site of the 
 ancient city of Mahagam, or, as it is now called, Magama, at the mouth 
 of a river of the same name. Twenty-two centuries ago it was a 
 flourishing and important centre of busy life, of which all trace has 
 disappeared, and the ruins which alone remain to mark its vanished 
 glory arc in the same style as those of Anuradhapura and PoUanarua, 
 namely, cyclopean dagobas, masses of fallen and crumbling brickwork, 
 lines of erect monoliths, once the supports of temple and palaces, 
 sculptured pillars, blocks of granite, and great flights of steps, once 
 the thronged approach to stately portals, now all overgrown with 
 prickly cactus and thorny jungle. 
 
 For the great tanks (or rather artificial lakes) constructed by the 
 builders of Magama for the irrigation of the land have for centuries 
 been left to go to ruin, the whole district, once so densely peopled and 
 so carefully cultivated, has long lain desolate, and the arid jungle, 
 extending from the sea to the foot of the Madulsima and Haputale 
 ranges, is the sportsman's and naturalist's happiest hunting-ground — 
 a vast unbroken forest some sixty miles in width, where the wild 
 creatures, scared from their former haunts by the advance of ever- 
 encroaching planters, still find a comparatively undisturbed sanctuary. 
 
 This is especially true of elephants, against whom the necessary war 
 was for many years waged so vigorously, both by European sportsmen 
 and by Moormen, that at length there seemed a danger of their 
 extermination. l>ut though bad masters, they are far too good as ser- 
 vants to be given over to destruction. A close season was therefore 
 instituted, and it was declared illegal to shoot an elephant without a 
 Government licence, costing ten rupees for each animal slain— a 
 proviso which has proved sorely trying to sportsmen who have had 
 exceptional luck in falling in unexpectedly with elephants, and whose 
 licence perhaps allowed them to shoot one only. 
 
 Thus protected, these giants of the forest soon increased, and are 
 now said to be as numerous as ever, though they have retired to the 
 most unfrequented regions, seeking concealment in the dense and 
 frequently malarious jungles which cloche the eastern side of
 
 SOUTHERN COAST 459 
 
 the Isle. They now abound in the South-Eastern Province from 
 Hambantota as far eastward as the Kombookgam River (now called 
 Kumukkan Aru), and range inland to the forests at the base of the 
 Uva hills near Badulla, whence they wander at will over all the low 
 country extending to Batticaloa. 
 
 The largest elephants, however, are said to haunt the forests of 
 Tamankaduwa around Lake Minery and the ruins of Pollanarua, and 
 also those to the north of Trincomalee. Great herds also find covert 
 in the desolate region to the north of Manaar, in the extreme north 
 of the Isle, and in the vast fever-haunted jungles of the Wannie— a . 
 term which describes an area of about 14,000 square miles. 
 
 The Southern Province is, however, the most popular with sports- 
 men, and the country about the Nipple Hills to the north of Tissama- 
 harama and between the Kumukkan Aru and the Kataragama-Ganga 
 is now considered to be the finest district in Ceylon for sport, so 
 numerous are all manner of laige game, including buffalo, which, like 
 the elephant, are now protected, and may not be shot without a 
 licence. In many districts, however, they have been so decimated by 
 disease as to be now comparatively scarce. The wild buffalo of Ceylon 
 has small horns as compared with that of India, but he is a very dan- 
 gerous and resolute antagonist. Even the domestic buffalo of the Isle 
 is generally vicious ; very different from the meek animal which in 
 China is generally ridden by the smallest child. 
 
 Deer of various sorts are here abundant — red deer, axis or spotted 
 deer, and sambur (commonly miscalled elk), hog-deer, barking-deer, 
 and the pretty little mouse-deer, which sometimes starts from the 
 grass almost under one's feet. Chetahs and leopards, porcupines, 
 wild pigs, monkeys, and sloths find theirparadise in that region, where 
 jungle, open plains, and lagoons supply all their need. Bears also are 
 numerous in the rocky jungle and in the dense forest, wherever white 
 ants, wild honey, or fruits are to be found, and very dangerous anta- 
 gonists they often prove, especially from their horrid habit of trying to 
 tear the face of their assailant. 
 
 Here, too, birds of radiant plumage still abound ; large flocks of 
 gorgeous pea-fowl, jungle-fowl, and many varieties of pigeons, yellow- 
 headed hoopoes, crimson-breasted barbet, and many another shy 
 creature here dwell in peace, while cormorants, spoonbills, ibises, 
 herons, and toucans congregate around the lonely forest tanks, their 
 wild cries alone breaking the utter stillness. 
 
 Soon after my return to Britain, I received from Mr. G. W. R
 
 46o Tim HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Caniphcll, Iiispector-Ciencral of Police, a description of a night jour- 
 ney across this district, which gives sonic idea of the risks which may 
 be incurred by lonely travellers, and made me realise that there may 
 be cases when it is a matter of congratulation that so few Ceylon 
 elephants own tusks. He says : — 
 
 ' After inspecting the gaol, I left Hambantota for Koslanda, in 
 Haputale. I was to travel the first twenty-eight miles during the night 
 in a bullock-cart, and next morning drive my own horses to the foot of 
 the mountains. The road lay almost all the way through dense forest 
 scrub infested with elephants and other wild animals. I was informed 
 that the elephants, not content with pulling up the milestones, some- 
 times attacked carts, so I deemed it prudent to desire that an armed 
 constable should escort my cart, which was a high heavy covered 
 spring-cart on two wheels. It was about 7 feet 3 inches in length, 
 and when my cushions were laid along it, made a fair bed. It was 
 drawn by a pair of bullocks, and three other pairs were stationed 
 along the road in advance. 
 
 ' Al)Out midnight I fell asleep, and being thoroughly tired, I 
 was quite unconscious when wc halted to change the bullocks and 
 escort. 
 
 ' Between two and three in the morning the cart was running 
 merrily along the white road in the bright moonlight, the constable 
 following, when a large elephant rushed out from the jungle to 
 the right, and with his trunk struck the cart a heavy blow on the top, 
 trumpeting furiously. 
 
 ' On his approach the terrified constable took to his heels and fled 
 back along the road by which we had come, but the driver, uttering 
 loud cries, partly of fear and partly in the hope of driving the beast 
 off, ran by the pole, urging his bullocks to their best speed, the 
 elephant following. 
 
 ' Just then I awoke, and fur a moment imagined that the darkness 
 and the. screaming and swaying of the cart were caused by the bullocks 
 having gone off the road and down some embankment into the 
 jungle, but in another moment I saw that the darkness was caused by 
 the head of an elephant blocking up the back of the cart, and that he 
 was bumping the hood upwards with his forehead. 
 
 ' Fearing that the whole thing would go over, or that he would 
 seize me, I instantly twisted myself round, and got out beside the 
 driver, intending to run as he was doing by the side of the pole ; but 
 I missed my footing, and came to the ground so awkwardly that the
 
 SOUTHERN COAST - 461 
 
 cart, which was going very fast, knocked me down, and the off- wheel 
 immediately passed over me. 
 
 ' Instantly, fearing lest the elephant should also pass over and 
 crush me, I scrambled into the grass, though with difficulty, ovving to 
 pain in my legs. The cart had disappeared, and there, about fifteen 
 paces off, facing me, stood the elephant in the moonlight, in the 
 middle of the white road, with a halo of dust round him. 
 
 ' I stood quite still in the shade of the tall thorny scrub, which 
 formed a high and almost impenetrable wall on either side of the 
 road. I do not know whether he saw me or not, but in less than half 
 a minute he turned, and standing across the road, put up his trunk as 
 high as he could and repeated the horrible screaming which is called 
 trumpeting. Then turning round (juickly, he marched back along the 
 road by which we had come. 
 
 ' I at once went off at a run in the other direction, feeling very stiff 
 and sore, and about 200 yards farther on overtook the cart, which the 
 driver, rather bravely, I think, had managed to pull up within that 
 distance. He hurried me into the cart, and we pushed along as 
 quickly as we could, he shouting every half minute at the top of his 
 voice to scare other wild animals. 
 
 'Soon afterwards we came upon a herd of seven or eight huge wild 
 buffaloes, which would scarcely let us pass, and about a mile farther 
 passed another herd, which absolutely blocked the road. I tried to 
 frighten them by lighting matches and throwing them at them ; one 
 lighted match actually fell on a bufflxlo's back. 
 
 'About the twenty-second mile-post we found our next bullocks, 
 and two men with guns, who told us they had been visited by a bear 
 while waiting for us. 
 
 ' When, just at daybreak, wc reached my carriage, my knees were 
 so bruised and swollen that I could not walk, nor even stand for a 
 moment without great pain. Nevertheless I had to drive myself 
 twenty-three miles farther to Wellawaya before I could rest. Arrived 
 there, a touch of jungle-fever came on, so that night's sleep was not 
 much better than the previous one ; but at daybreak I started to 
 drive myself the remaining twenty-six miles to Haldummulla, halting 
 for some hours at Koslanda for an inspection, though in such pain 
 that I was unable to stand for more than a few seconds at a time.' ' 
 
 1 The Inspector-General of Police nnd of all the Prisons in Ceylon had little time 
 to let grass grow under his feet. I renienil)cr Mr. Campbell's driving one morning, 
 quite as a matter of course, from Colombo to Negombo, thence starting on an exten- 
 sive round of inspection, returning the same evening, luiving driven upwaids or
 
 462 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 No wonder that the tappal-runners, the rural postmen of the Isle, 
 dread these lonely forest roads, their sole protection being a bunch of 
 small bells at the end of a long stick, which they jingle as they go. 
 A flaming torch is generally effectual in scaring elephants, but in the 
 North-Eastern Provinces, in the days of palanquin-travelling, the 
 bearers used to insist on being escorted by a professional elei)hant- 
 charmer, who, whenever they approached a herd, warned them off by 
 the mystic sentence, ' Om am ari >ian saringham saravaye^ at the 
 sound of which the boldest elephants turned tail and fled ! 
 
 This South-Eastcrn Maritime Province, though only separated from 
 the western coast by a mountain range not 5,000 feet in height, is in 
 every respect strangely different ; for whereas from April till July the 
 west coast has a heavy rainfall, this too sheltered region can only hope 
 for rain in November and l^ecember ; so, instead of rich luxuriant 
 groves and large timber, the prevailing feature is dry thorny scrub, 
 with here and there tracts of thirsty sand, only partially clothed with 
 stunted grass and huge cactus-like euphorbias, with their odd four- 
 sided stems and fleshy branches, growing to a height of over thirty 
 feet. 
 
 These scorched plains are subject to excessive drought, when 
 rivers are reduced to meagre streams meandering through an expanse 
 of burning sand, and their tributaries wholly disappear, leaving only 
 dry watercourses, tantalising to thirsty men and beasts. Then, when 
 the rains do set in, they are apt to fall in such good earnest that the 
 country is flooded, and when half dry, form deep unhealthy marshes, 
 sending up a steaming miasma productive of fever, dysentery, the 
 scourge of the country, and parangi, that dreadful and loathsome com- 
 plaint said to be peculiar to Ceylon, and greatly due to lack of good 
 food and good water. 
 
 An immediate improvement in the condition of the district was 
 looked for when, in 1876, the restoration of the great tank Tissama- 
 harama, six or eight miles to the north of Magama, was completed ; 
 but from various causes, chiefly from the scantiness of the population, 
 who were to profit by its water-supply, it for a while proved so unre- 
 muncrative (in return for the enormous outlay on its restoration) as to 
 have been deemed well-nigh a foilure. That, however, is an impres- 
 
 seventy-five miles, besides all his official work at each station. And next morning, 
 long before dawn, he was at work in his office, ready as usual for another long round. 
 Few men in Britain would even attempt to undertake such work as here falls on a few 
 willing slioulders ; yet any breakdown in health is invariably attributed, not to over- 
 work, but to the climate!
 
 SOUTHERN COAST 463 
 
 sion which is fading away before the steadily increasing area of well- 
 watered cultivated land which is now yielding abundant food in the 
 districts where famine so long reigned. 
 
 By the beginning of 1890 no less than 1,500 acres were yielding 
 two rice crops yearly in return for the precious water supplied by 
 Lake Tissa, and now Moormen as well as Singhalese are coming from 
 other districts to compete for these well-irrigated lands, and it is found 
 necessary to provide fresh storage for the ever-increasing demand for 
 water. In short, there seems reason to believe that in process of time 
 the whole country between Tissa and the sea will become one vast 
 cultivated expanse. 
 
 The tank, which is about six miles in circumference, and covers an 
 area of about 3,000 acres, was made by King Devenipiatissa, n.c. 307 
 It lies on a slightly raised table-land 73 feet above the sea-level, where 
 once stood a great city, of which there remain only ruins all overgrown 
 by dense forest. Now its rock-temples and ruined palaces afford 
 shelter only to wild beasts except at midsummer, when the pilgrims 
 halt here on their way to Kataragama to worship at these ruined 
 shrines, and for a few days Tissa is once again thronged, perhaps by 
 thousands, intent on trade or devotion, as the case may be. 
 
 A detail of some geological interest is that in the neighbourhood 
 both of Tissa and of Hambantota there are beds of great extent, and 
 many feet in thickness, composed entirely of shells. These are dug 
 out and used instead of gravel in repairing roads. In view of all the 
 traditions of the encroachments of the ocean, we can scarcely suppose 
 the sea to have receded from this particular coast, so the theory of 
 upheaval seems the more probable. 
 
 This theory is confirmed by the fact that at Miripenna, just south 
 of Galle, large blocks of coral rock are excavated from the soil fully a 
 quarter of a mile inland ; also in the extreme north of the Isle, the 
 Jaffna peninsula is found to rest entirely on a foundation of coral, 
 which is supposed to have been upheaved in geologically recent 
 times. 
 
 Fain would I have extended my travels twenty miles inland to 
 those blue hill-ranges around the famous shrine of Katixragama (a //as 
 Maha .Sen), one of the demons worshii)ped by the aborigines, after- 
 wards identified with a mighty Singhalese king, and finally adopted by 
 the Brahmans, who identify him with Siva. Contrary, however, to 
 the custom of the Sivites, this temple contains no image, only a mys- 
 terious curtain, before which kneel crowds of pilgrims from every part
 
 464 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 of India, sometimes even high-caste Crahmansfrom remote Hurdwar 
 (the holy city near the source of the Ganges, distant well-nigh 2,000 
 miles), who visit this shrine, seeking cures for divers diseases, and who 
 present silver models of their various limbs as votive offerings to Maha 
 Sen.' 
 
 The great annual festival occurs at the hottest season of the year, 
 between June and August, its precise date being regulated by some 
 combination of the full moon with other details. So vast are the 
 crowds which sometimes flock to this shrine, and so great the conse- 
 (juent risk of outbreaks of cholera, that in 1874 it was found neces- 
 sary to enact a law that in seasons when sickness is prevalent only 
 400 pilgrims in all were to be permitted to attend, i.e. 100 each from 
 the Western, Central, Eastern, or Southern Provinces, each person 
 being provided with a ticket signed by the Government Agent of the 
 Province, and being further bound to travel by specified routes, and 
 to conform strictly to police regulations, arranging their journey so as 
 not to arrive at Kataragama earlier than August 3 or to remain there 
 for more than two clear days, to include the period of the fuU 
 moon. ■ Any infringement of these rules renders the offender liable to 
 a year's imprisonment or to a fine not exceeding 1,000 rupees. 
 
 Stringent as are these regulations, it has sometimes been found 
 necessary to render them still more so. Thus in June 1883 upwards 
 of 10,000 pilgrims assembled at Kataragama, but in the following 
 year, when there was fear of cholero, the number was officially re- 
 stricted to a total of 150 persons, namely, thirty to represent Colombo, 
 
 ' It is curious to observe how widesprend is tliis custom of lianging up models of 
 the hmb restored or for which healing is craved. In the long-isolated temples of Japan 
 I have seen thousands of such models. We know that they were offered in ancient 
 Greece, for the British Museum possesses two votive hands made of bronze. They 
 were also common in Kg^pt, generally entwined with figures of serpents, emblematic 
 of recovered health. Hands, arms, ears, eyes, and other members, modelled in terra- 
 cotta or carved in ivory, have tjcen found at Thebes and elsewhere, with a thanks- 
 giving dedication to whichever deity received credit for the cure effected. 
 
 Most remarkable of all is the fact that in many of these heathen offerings the hand 
 is modelled with the third and fourth fingers closed, while the first and second (the 
 fingers of benediction, as a Ritualist would call them) are upraised in the orthodox 
 attitude of ecclesiastical benediction. Hence we may infer that not only the presenta- 
 tion of such ex ivtos at Roman C'atholic shrines, but also this peculiar priestly attitude, 
 are directly borrowed from Paganism, probably introduced into the Alexandrian 
 Church by some Egyptian convert. Those who have travelled in Roman Catholic 
 countries can scarcely fail to recall various churches (such as those of San Publio in 
 Malta or of Notre Dame de la Garde at Marseilles, where votive offerings of every 
 sort, but chiefly of miniature arms, legs, eyes, and ears, modelled in wa.x or silver, as 
 the case may be, are hung up round the altars of divers saints, as thank-offerings for 
 cures attributed to their intercessions.
 
 SOUTHERN COAST 465 
 
 thirty for Kandy, and as many for Galle, Kurunegalla, and Batti- 
 caloa. 
 
 Before this regulation of the pilgrimages commenced they were 
 simply seed-beds for the fostering and spread of disease. Thus in 
 the cholera outbreak in 1858, no less than seventy-six dead bodies 
 were counted on the highroad between Hambantota and Tangalla, 
 and it is certain that very many more must have perished in the 
 jungle-paths and roadside villages. 
 
 The following table, though not up to date, shows how the 
 number of pilgrims varies from year to year : — 
 
 1872 
 
 ^^n 
 
 1S74 
 
 1875 
 
 1876 
 
 1S77 
 
 1S7S 
 
 1883 
 
 4,000 
 
 7,000 
 
 1,200 
 
 60 
 
 107 
 
 44 
 
 15 
 
 I0,030 
 
 For a lover of the picturesque this pilgrimage is specially attrac- 
 tive, the favourite camping-ground being the dry bed of the broad 
 Kataragama River, which in the summer-time is totally dried up, but 
 is overshadowed by magnificent forest trees. In Oriental lands such 
 a scene, with all the groups of very varied nationality clustering round 
 their camp-fires, is always full of incident and colour. 
 
 That river is more commonly known as the Manick-Ganga, or 
 ' River of Gems,' from the fact that its sandy bed is composed of glit- 
 tering atoms of quartz and mica, mingled with infinitesimal fragments 
 of rubies, sapphires, garnets, and jacinth. As the sunlight plays on 
 the clear shallow water flowing over this radiant bed of sparkling 
 gems, it seems like the enchanted river of some fairy tale, but so tiny 
 are the precious morsels that it is exceedingly rare to find one worth 
 keeping. The people use this sand to facilitate the labour of sawing 
 through elephants' teeth. Near Hambantota there are tracts of sand 
 which literally are composed of ruby dust. 
 
 Certainly it is strange that a gem-loving people should for so many 
 centuries have recognised that these precious fragments were washed 
 down from some of the higher rocks, and yet should never have at- 
 tempted any systematic search for these hid treasures. Doubtless 
 now that gem-mining is being taken up in good earnest, those hitherto 
 inaccessible crags will be made to yield many a priceless jewel. 
 
 H H
 
 466 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 RETURN TO COLOMHO 
 
 llcntota — Lilies — Mmigroves—Kalutara— Fisher castes— Oideal by boiling oil- 
 Colombo. 
 
 On my return journey from Matara to Colombo I proved how 
 comfortable it can be to travel ' in charge of the police ; ' always 
 provided such charge be that of a great Inspector-General who takes 
 special pride not only in every detail of his official work, but also in the 
 excellence of the grey horses which await him at every halting-place. 
 
 Not that we had to hurry over the beautiful drive. Happily for 
 my sketching mania, there was so much police inspection to be done 
 on the way, that we were detained a whole day at Galle and another 
 at Bentota, a very pretty fishing-village, with a really luxurious rest- 
 house charmingly situated beneath the cool shade of feathery tama- 
 rind-trees and cocoa-palms, on a little rocky headland washed by the 
 waves, and at the mouth of the Alutgama River. 
 
 Thence, looking along the shore, there is a fine view of Cape 
 Barberyn, which is the westernmost point of Ceylon. Grand waves 
 breaking round rocky palm-covered islands, glimpses of calm fresh- 
 water pools and green turf, coast villages, and many fishing boats, 
 successive headlands all clothed with cocoa-palms, pandanus, and 
 other tropical vegetation, and yellow sands carpeted with marine 
 convolvulus, make up as pleasant a picture as can be desired. 
 
 Equally fascinating is the view from the bridge looking up the 
 beautiful river flowing so calmly between continuous walls of lovely 
 foliage, to where, beyond many ranges of palm and forest in varied 
 tints of green and blue, rises the clear delicate range of far-away blue 
 mountains, of which the crowning peak is the ever-attractive 'Sri 
 Pada ' (the Holy Footprint). 
 
 Most beautiful of all was a row up the silent river in the clear 
 moonlight, doubly attractive after the great heat of the day. Yet even 
 that heat was tempered by a delicious sea-breeze and an invigorating 
 scent of iodine, and the too dazzling light on sea and sky served to 
 intensify enjoyment of the blessed shade. 
 
 Truly exquisite and delightful to eyes wearied with the sun's 
 glare is the endless variety of cool refreshing greens which surround
 
 RETURN TO COLOMBO 467 
 
 them on every side in this verdant paradise ; large golden-green silky 
 leaves, which seem to have embodied the sunlight that plays on their 
 upper surface ; sombre dark-green foliage, so thick and heavy as 
 effectually to bar all light, casting a cool deep shadow on the grassy 
 carpet below. There are olive-greens and emerald -greens, indigo and 
 chrome, every tint that can be produced by blending every known 
 yellow with every known blue. Loveliest of all, perhaps, is the 
 exquisitely fresh green of the rice-fields, brighter even than our own 
 wheat-fields in early spring. 
 
 As if to harmonise with these all pervading hues, a large propor- 
 tion of living creatures — the fairies of the forest — are clad in green, 
 the better to escape the notice of their foes. Brilliant green birds, 
 butterflies, and dragonflies flit from tree to tree, tasting each honeyed 
 blossom, while green lizards and green beetles find secure homes in 
 crevices of the mossy stems, and green whipsnakes too often glide 
 about among the boughs, perhaps in pursuit of the pretty little green 
 tree-frogs, which try to hide themselves beneath the green leaves. 
 
 As to the small green parroquets (which are the only Singhalese 
 representatives of the parrot family), their name is legion, and they 
 are as gregarious as our own rooks, vast flocks assembling towards 
 evening in such trees as they fancy, uttering shrill screams, chattering 
 and fluttering, while apparently fighting for the best places, and 
 dispersing again in the early morning amid a babel of the same ear- 
 splitting screams. 
 
 Though all these parroquets are practically green, several varieties 
 have distinguishing marks ; thus one peculiar to the mountains in the 
 Central Province has a purple head ; another, which is also peculiar 
 to Ceylon, has a deep red plume on the crown of the head ; a third 
 has a grey head, and a fourth has a rose-coloured ring round the neck. 
 Occasionally, but very rarely, a pure yellow parroquet is hatched, and 
 is valued on the same principle as the many-headed palm, on account 
 of its rarity. 
 
 Attractive to the eye as are these pretty birds, their unmusical voices 
 make them anything but desirable neighbours, whereas some of the 
 pigeons, whose plumage, though less brilliant, is quite as lovely, have 
 most soothing melodious notes. Such is the Kurulu-goya, whose 
 euphonious Singhalese name well expresses its note. These birds fly 
 in flocks, and their colouring is most delicate green flushed with rose- 
 colour. A small pretty pigeon with dark-green metallic plumage is 
 the Batta-goya, while the Mahavilla-goya is also a small green dove
 
 468 TIJ'O HAPPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 The Kobaiya is a small grey turlle-dove, and the Baila-goya is a grey 
 bird very like our own wood-pigeon. 
 
 A very common green and brown bird is the barbet, of which 
 there are at least three varieties in Ceylon, one of which, with red 
 head and green back, goes by the name of the 'coppersmith,' its 
 strange metallic note being unpleasantly suggestive of hammering 
 metal — a sound which, blending with the incessant creaking, sawing, 
 and buzzing noises produced by various insects, to say nothing of the 
 creaking of wooden cart-wheels and the working of the garden-well, 
 sometimes become almost unendurably irritating. 
 
 Among the delicacies provided for us by a most attentive rest- 
 house keeper were some of the oysters for which Bentota is famous, 
 but they are poor little mis-shapen things, somewhat bitter in flavour, 
 as well they may be, from a hereditary intuition of how successive 
 generations of white men persist in tearing them from their homes, 
 and yet never accord them one word of praise ; for you never hear 
 a Singhalese oyster named except in disparaging comparison with 
 those of Europe or America. They are, however, allowed to be good 
 when roasted on the shore, in the manner so familiar at Australian 
 seaside picnics. 
 
 Alas ! how poor words are to convey clear impressions of lovely 
 scenes, with the countless characteristic details to which they owe so 
 much of their charm ! As I turn the pages of many sketch books 
 and portfolios, and feel how vividly the slightest jottings recall places, 
 and all their attractive Oriental inhabitants and interesting customs, I 
 feel how impossible it is to make mere words convey any true idea of 
 what is so fascinating to the eye. 
 
 To take one of the most insignificant examples, the ping-tallie or 
 ping-chattie, i.e., ' meritorious water-jar,' placed at intervals along the 
 roadside by some one anxious to acquire merit by keeping up a con- 
 stant supply of cold water for thirsty wajfarers. Here is one sketched 
 at Bentota on the brink of the sea. A large red chattie of porous 
 'jarthenware on a stand to raise it some feet from the ground, and 
 with a miniature roof of red tiles, the whole overshadowed by golden - 
 green banana leaves ; a little child carrying a large green leaf as a sun- 
 shade stands beside its mother while she refills the great jar, across 
 which lies the wooden scoop with which each traveller takes out water 
 and pours it into his hand, drinking thence, or else pouring it into his 
 mouth from some height, so that men of all castes may drink without 
 defilement.
 
 kETURN to COLOMBO 469 
 
 Here is a very primitive ping-chattie poised on a tripod formed by 
 three sticks, the upper end of which supports a thatch of pahii-leaves. 
 This is in a cocoa-pahii tope, and a thirsty brown man with long silky 
 black hair carries in his arms a kid, whose mother follows close, as 
 does also a little child guiltless of any raiment. 
 
 Here is one equally primitive, sketched in a village near Kandy, 
 where the red jar rests in the fork of a small dead tree, across the 
 broken branches of which is poised the yellow fan-shaped leaf of a 
 talipat-palm, to protect the water from the sun. Beside it grows a 
 large aloe, and a datura literally white with large and very fragrant 
 trumpet-shaped blossoms. Just beyond, overshadowed by a great 
 ' lettuce-tree,' its beautiful lemon-yellow foliage gleaming in contrast 
 with a bright blue sky, is an ambulam or rest-house for Tamil coolies, 
 its solid white pillars supporting a red-tiled roof, on the summit of 
 which is a curious red earthenware ornament, representing three times 
 three cobras arranged in a pinnacle. Well for the merry squirrels who 
 play hide-and-seek among the broken tiles that these are only images 
 of the cobra, and not the genuine article ! A troop of monkeys are 
 also careering over the roofs and in the trees, while groups of tur- 
 baned men are cooking at small fires in the open air. 
 
 This rest-house is at the entrance of a village ; all the roofs are 
 red-tiled, and all are shaded either by large-leaved plantains, fragrant 
 white daturas, potato-trees with lovely purple blossoms, or palm-trees 
 loaded with nuts in all stages. On either side of the road flows a 
 narrow stream, across which a separate arched bridge, with steps, leads 
 to each house. In the open shops hang huge clusters of ripe bananas, 
 and piles of huge jak fruit to be used in curries, fragrant pine-apples, 
 bright green ripe oranges, and other fruit to tempt wayfarers, also 
 large cages full of poultry. Among the innumerable, ever-changing 
 groups which make up the kaleidoscope of colour, all in vivid light 
 and shadow, comes a cart drawn by white bullocks, with the usual 
 high-arched cover of dried palm-leaves, which throws such rich dark 
 shadow on the figures crouching within. I'his one is literally covered, 
 inside and out, with red earthenware jars of all sizes, hung on with 
 cords. 
 
 I turn a page and find another village, which, described in words, 
 would seem only a repetition of the last. But in this case the 'meri- 
 torious water-chattie ' stands on a neat white pedestal, built upon one 
 of the little bridges aforesaid, and it is protected by a large native 
 umbrella supported b}' two sticks.
 
 470 'J'lyo lIAPPy YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 Just one more page ! Here is a ping-tallie sketched at Dickwella. 
 It is a most elaborately sculptured stone font, which (but that it re- 
 presents grim heraldic lions) might take a place in any church. It 
 certainly is out of keeping with the broken steps leading up to the 
 rude well from which it is being filled by a bronze lad, clothed chiefly 
 in his own long black hair, and who, by the help of a long rope, draws 
 up his red jar from the deep cool waters far below. A Singhalese 
 woman, barefooted of course, and showing a good deal of brown waist 
 between her white jacket and orange-coloured comboy, is giving her 
 brown little ones a drink from the wooden scoop, and oh ! what 
 pretty creatures are some of these, with their large lustrous black eyes. 
 Similarly attractive scenes meet one at every turn, and give human 
 interest to scenes of ever-changing loveliness. 
 
 The whole drive from Galle to Colombo, a distance of about 
 seventy miles, is one long dream of beauty. The excellent carriage- 
 road runs so close to the shore that we are constantly catching sight 
 and sound of the vividly blue sea and grand surf, sometimes dashing 
 on headlands of dark rock, sometimes breaking more gently on the 
 yellow sands of peaceful bays, and revealing endless glimpses of 
 fishing life — brown boats with ruddy sails, brown men, chiefly clothed 
 in a yellow palm-leaf hat, drawing brown nets. The whole way is 
 overshadowed by luxuriant vegetation in such varied combinations 
 that the eye can never weary of such a succession of beauty. 
 
 Of course the tall slender palms, with their sunlit crowns, are the 
 predominating feature, towering above all to a height of ninety to 
 a hundred feet, bending in every direction, and often overgrown 
 by graceful creepers, which hang in festoons and garlands. The 
 most remarkable of these is the Gloriosa superba, there called 
 ' Neyangalla,' a very peculiar climbing lily of a gorgeous scarlet and 
 orange. 
 
 Sad to say, on the many thousand palms which clothe the shore 
 from Bentota to Kalutara there is scarcely a nut to be seen, these 
 trees being grown solely for the manufacture of arrack from 
 the sap or toddy, which, as I have already described, is obtained 
 by cruelly beating the flower spathe to prevent the formation of 
 embryo nuts. One result of this unnatural culture is that the very 
 bats are demoralised ; and when the toddy begins to ferment, the 
 great flying-foxes asscml)le in flocks and help themselves to the con- 
 tents of the chatties so freely that they literally become drunk and 
 riotous !
 
 RETUR.Y TO COLOMBO 47 1 
 
 While many beautiful types of foliage combine to produce an 
 endless variety overhead and on either side of the red road, the 
 undergrowth is no less varied and lovely. There are an infinite 
 variety of ferns, including several exquisite climbing species, which 
 bear the most delicate little fronds, sometimes fringed with seed on 
 stems like black horse-hair,' and which grow so rankly as to veil tall 
 shrubs and hang in fairy-like wreaths from tree to tree. In some 
 parts of the island I have seen these growing so abundantly that 
 they are cut wholesale and used for thatch as ruthlessly as we cut 
 common brackens, the large hair-like stems acting as excellent rain- 
 conductors. 
 
 Then there are a great variety of aroids, with handsome arrow- 
 headed leaves, from the cultivated yam and the calla-lily to the 
 crimson veined and spotted caladium, familiar in our greenhouses, 
 but of so much larger growth that a single leaf is often plucked as 
 an effective and very pretty sunshade. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of Clalle a beautiful white lily,"^ like our 
 virgin- lily, grows freely along the shore on stems fully six feet in 
 height, and generally with a luxuriant growth of goat's-foot convol- 
 vulus, with shining green leaves and pink or delicate lilac blossoms, 
 matting the shore to the brink of the sea, and invariably tenanted by 
 innumerable tiny crabs, chiefly hermits — the ' wise men ' of the sea, 
 who live in houses built for themselves by other creatures. 
 
 A charming feature of this drive, or indeed of any drive along 
 the coast of Ceylon, is the great number of streams and rivers to be 
 crossed by wooden bridges. Some are all fringed with feathery 
 bamboos and palms ; others, forming wide estuaries as they enter 
 the sea, lose themselves in tidal swamps densely clothed with 
 sombre mangroves, whose aerial roots form a labyrinth wherein 
 myriads of crabs and shell-fish, watersnakes, crocodiles, and other 
 unpleasant creatures, including swarms of mosquitoes, find a secure 
 haven. A large proportion of these roots are thrown out from 
 the stem at a considerable height above the mud, and bending down- 
 wards, act the part of buttresses to support the parent stem in the 
 loose soil. 
 
 A very curious feature in the reproduction of the mangrove is 
 that the seed does not fall from the seed-vessel when ripe, but therein 
 remains and germinates, while the seed-vessel remains attached to 
 the parent stem. The infant root grows out at the top, and 
 
 1 Lyqodium scaiuhns, ^ Paiicraliniii zeyhvncniu.
 
 472 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 continues growing till it reaches the mud, or till the seed-vcssel 
 drops off, in which case it ecjually lands in tlie mud, and there 
 becomes established as a young mangrove to take its part in clothing 
 the swamp, and by gradually extending the dense thicket of 
 vegetation, reclaim more land from the neutral ground. 
 
 The bark of the mangrove is commercially valuable on account 
 of the large amount of tannin it yields, and its timber is prized as 
 firewood ; but as population increases in the vicinity of mangrove- 
 clad shores, it is a grave question whether the destruction of these 
 maritime forests may not so disturb Nature's equilibrium as to prove 
 a source of danger, as the tannin, which ceaselessly drops from 
 leaves, bark, and seeds, is said to be a powerful antidote against 
 putrefoction, and in places where wholesale denudation has been 
 permitted, as in the case of the Brazilian mangrove swamp off Rio, 
 the enormous deposits of dead fish and shell- fish, which are left to 
 decompose in the burning heat on the now bare banks of black 
 mud, are so offensive as to be deemed in at least some measure 
 accountable for the terrible visitations of yellow fever and other 
 epidemics of comparatively recent introduction. 
 
 Another tree which flourishes on these shores is the Baringtonia, 
 a large handsome tree with dark glossy foliage and clusters of delicate 
 white blossom edged with crimson. It bears large fibrous fruits of 
 pyramidal form, within which lie seeds which are used in medicine, 
 and from which an oil is expressed for lamps, which is also oc- 
 casionally used by fishers, who mix it with bait, and so contrive to 
 stupefy the fish,which are then easily captured. 
 
 One of the loveliest of these many rivers is the Kalu-Ganga, or 
 Black River, at the mouth of which is Kalutara, a large and pleasant 
 village. We started from Bentota with the earliest glimmer of dawn, 
 while fires were still gleaming in the fishers' boats, and so had full 
 benefit of the deliciously cool morning air, and of the lovely early 
 lights reflected in the calm waters of a long beautiful lagoon. We 
 halted close to Kalutara to secure a rapid sketch of a very fine 
 banyan-tree which formed a magnificent archway right across the 
 road, aerial roots having dropped from the main branches and taken 
 root on the farther side. The whole was bearded with a fringe of 
 long brown filaments and overgrown by luxuriant parasitic plants 
 and ferns, producing a most beautiful effect. Alas ! it is reported 
 that this very remarkable tree has been blown over in a fierce gale. 
 
 Very fascinating is the view from the old fort at Kalutara, where
 
 f^ETURN To COLOMBO 473 
 
 we halted for breakfast, looking up the beautiful Kalu-Ganga to the 
 distant mountain range, crowned as usual by the Mount of the Holy 
 Foot, which is distant about sixty-five miles. The river is navigable 
 for boats as far as ]\.atnapura, whence many of the pilgrims to the 
 Peak avail themselves of this easy mode of returning to the sea- 
 coast. Much of the estate produce is also brought by this easy 
 waterway from the hills to Kalutara, and thence to Colombo either 
 by rail or by further water-carriage through lagoons and canals, such 
 as those by which we travelled to Kalpitya. The railway has the 
 double advantage of speed and of security against dishonest boatmen, 
 to whom the quiet of the lagoons offers almost irresistible temp- 
 tations. 
 
 The river is here spanned by a wide bridge, below which lay 
 moored many thatched boats, while seaward, fishers were drawing 
 up their long seine nets and others were fishing from boats. 
 
 Strange to say, the laws of caste are as rfgidly marked between 
 the subdivisions of the fisher caste as between separate castes. 
 There are five upper divisions, who are allowed to intermarry ; each 
 of these has a distinctive name, meaning ' those who fish from the 
 rocks,' ' those who fish from boats,' ' those who catch turtle,' ' those 
 who cast nets,' and ' those who fish with a rod.' 
 
 Besides these there are a number of divisions of fishers of 
 lower social position, who must on no account aspire to marry with 
 their betters, though some are engaged in lucrative trades, such as 
 boat and ship-building and cabinet-making. Some are carpenters 
 and some are farmers — a curious blending of professions according to 
 our British experience of the sharp line of demarcation which exists 
 between our own fisher- folk and all others inhabiting even the other 
 end of the same village. 
 
 Kalutara is one of the few places in Ceylon where that most 
 delicious of fruits the mangosteen ripens well — a great point in its 
 favour. The industry by which the town is most widely known is 
 that of weaving baskets from the fibre of a palm-leaf, which is split 
 as narrow as fine grass, and dyed black, red, and yellow. The 
 baskets are oblong, and are sold in nests of twelve, fitting inside of 
 one another, very convenient to carry and very useful. They are 
 wonderfully light and yet durable, and are made by women and 
 children. Nearer to Colombo a good many Malays manufacture 
 baskets and flower-stands from the rattan-cane, and at various 
 villages in the interior we saw people weaving coarse rush-mats, but
 
 474 '^fi-'O HAPPY YEARS LV CEYLON 
 
 all finer ornamental mats used in Ceylon are imported from the 
 Suvadiva group of the Maldive Isles, which are a dependency of 
 Ceylon. 
 
 It is much to l^e feared that future travellers will miss much of 
 the enjoyment of this lovely drive to Colombo, for the railway is now 
 open as far as Bentota, with a station at the mouth of the Alutgama 
 River — a beautiful line of railway, skirting still lagoons and generally 
 running close along the shore, where the mighty waves break with a 
 crash louder than the roar of the rushing train. But railway travel 
 allows small leisure to realise all the beauties of the panorama so 
 rapidly revealed, and in an Oriental land, where each moment we 
 whirl past something of interest, it is the worst form of the 
 aggravation of tahkaux vivanfs^ for at best we catch an unsatisfying 
 glimpse of scenes which in the twinkling of an eye have vanished 
 from our gaze. 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable in the history of all Oriental railways 
 than the rapidity with which pilgrims of various faiths avail them- 
 selves of this mode of lightening the toil of their pilgrimage. The 
 extension to Bentota proved no exception, for very soon after it was 
 opened crowds of Mahommedans poured down from Colombo and 
 elsewhere to worship at the Alutgama mosque. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, the old life and the new flow side by side, 
 sometimes in strange contrast. Thus while the railway from Kalu- 
 tara to Bentota was in process of completion, three persons, including 
 a native headman, were tried before the District Court for having 
 subjected several persons to the torture known as the ' ordeal by 
 boiling oil,' in order to extract a confession of the theft of some 
 plumbago. 
 
 The accused, who did not attempt to deny tlie offence, were 
 very much aggrieved that IJritish law should interfere, and even 
 punish them for an act sanctioned by ancient custom, and which, 
 it appears, is still commonly practised in out-of-the-way parts of the 
 Isle. 
 
 The ceremony is as follows. Oil from newly-gathered king cocoa- 
 nuts is manufactured by a friend of the complainant, and is heated 
 over the fire in a chattie. ^\'hen boiling, each of the persons accused 
 is required to dip his fingers thrice into the chattie, and, I believe, 
 thrice also into a preparation of boiling cow-dung. If he can refrain 
 from any exclamation of pain, he is held to be innocent, but any cry 
 is equivalent to an admission of guilt. The only consolation of the
 
 RETURN TO COLOMBO . 475 
 
 victim is that he is at hberty to sprinkle over his adversary as much 
 boihng oil as sticks to his fingers. 
 
 In the present case, though the five persons accused were all 
 forcibly dragged up to the chattie and compelled to plunge their 
 hands in the boiling oil, all managed to refrain from crying out 
 except one young lad, though he was the least injured, consec^uently 
 he was declared to be the thief and required to surrender the stolen 
 property. All the five persons subjected to the ordeal were so 
 shockingly scalded as to be unable to return to their work for three 
 weeks. 
 
 Much to their indignation, the self-appointed torturers were each 
 condemned to pay a fine of a hundred rupees, or undergo ten 
 months' imprisonment. 
 
 At Tantura (or, as it is now called, Panadura), about half-way 
 from Kalutara to Colombo, we crossed a backwater of the sea, which, 
 stretching inland, forms the beautiful lake Bolgoda, all dotted with 
 charming islands. These are the homes of innumerable waterfowl, 
 and also are the scene of a curious phase of bird life, quite a la Box 
 and Cox, affording a roosting-ground by day to flocks of large flying- 
 foxes, which, after a night of marauding among the fruit-trees, come 
 here at dawn to hang themselves up on secure boughs, just as 
 the crows, who have slept here peacefully all night, as beseems 
 respectable workers, are starting on their day of useful toil as 
 scavengers. 
 
 As we drove cheerily on our way from Kalutara to Colombo, the 
 excellence of ' the Queen's highway ' could not but call forth the 
 usual encomium, as we contrasted our pleasant drive from Galle with 
 the toilsome journey of the Governor's party when travelling over 
 the same ground in the year 1800, when roads were non-existent. 
 Just think of the heat and of the dust stirred up by 160 palanquin- 
 bearers and 400 baggage-coolies trudging wearily through the hot 
 sand, to say nothing of the troop of fifty lascars, six horses, and two 
 elephants who were necessary for the transport and care of the tents ! 
 
 Now the coast-road, 769 miles in length, extends right round the 
 island, the greater i)art of it being available for wheel traffic, though 
 here and there portions still leave room for imi)rovcment. 
 
 Since we parted at dalle, the Bishop had been ordered to Malta 
 on sick-leave, and the Campbells had most kindly offered me head- 
 quarters at their pleasant temporary home in Captain's Gardens, 
 which is a promontory jutting into the Lake of Colombo, and clothed
 
 476 TIFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 with most luxuriant vegetation — flowering trees gorgeous with fragrant 
 blossom, kittool-palms seeming literally overladen with ropes of 
 fruit, all reflected in the calm water, on which floated a wealth of 
 lovely lilies. 
 
 At the entrance a fine banyan -tree formed an arch right across 
 the road, somewhat in the style of the tree at Kalutara, but lacking 
 its grace and its dainty tracery of ferns. Two fine india-rubber trees 
 si)read their wide arms and cool shade over the lawn in front of the 
 comfortable bungalow, a one-storied house of the regular type, with 
 a wide verandah and red-tiled roof, white pillars supporting the home 
 of innumerable happy squirrels and little lizards. 
 
 A separate bungalow stood a little apart in the garden, and the 
 large house was so full of little daughters that this separate 'guest- 
 house ' was assigned to me, greatly to my pleasure, as it was charm- 
 ingly situated on the very brink of the lovely lake, and shaded with 
 cocoa-palms of all ages (which implies the loveliest variety of form)> 
 growing amid cool green grass, and catching every breath of air, 
 whenever there was the faintest breeze from sea or lake. And it 
 certainly was hot ; everyone around was gasping and craving for the 
 'Chota monsoon' ' to bring cool rain, though personally I gloried in 
 what seemed to me divine weather ; and certainly I was always up 
 to anything, from gunfire till starlight. 
 
 It was fortunate that I was not troubled with nerves, for the 
 house of which I was sole occupant had five outer doors and seven- 
 teen windows, not one of which could be securely closed, and so 
 they all stood wide open day and night, for if they could not keep out 
 thieves, there was no reason why they should keep out air ! I confess 
 to having experienced an occasional nocturnal qualm at the proximity 
 of a large village of dhobies (laundry-men) not of the best repute, 
 and sometimes awoke in the moonlight to make sure that there were 
 no long poles coming in at the window to fish out my clothes in the 
 approved fashion. However, no such evil befell ; and, indeed, by 
 reason of my host's office, police orderlies were always somewhere 
 about to scare marauders. 
 
 ' C/wt.r, small.
 
 477 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 NATIVE POLICE 
 
 Native police — Frequency of stabbing and of perjury — Intricate division of property — 
 Too many legal ad\ isers — Regulations concerning cart and servant registration — 
 Pearl-fishery — Cruelty to animals— Volunteers. 
 
 The very fine body of native police, as at present constituted, is the 
 creation of Mr. G. W. R. Campbell,' under whose command it con- 
 tinued till this year, 1891-^a force of which he has good reason to 
 be proud. 
 
 In September 1866, at the request of Sir Hercules Robinson, he 
 resigned an excellent position in India to undertake the remodelling 
 of the very unsatisfactory police force of that day. 
 
 He found it to consist of a nominal force of 560 men, but in 
 reality there were only 470, quite untrained, and lacking in all esprit 
 de corps. These were expected to keep order in a population of over 
 two million people, by many of whom he found that crime was re- 
 garded with complete indifference, even in such horrible cases as 
 that of a father lifting up his infant by the feet and dashing its brains 
 out on the floor before its mother's eyes, merely to gratify his almost 
 causeless rage against her ; or that of a man braining his own little 
 girl on purpose to get his father-in-law hanged for murder. He 
 found that even under the existing very imperfect system for detec- 
 tion of crime, no less than 81 cases of murder and 22 of manslaughter 
 had been proven within the two previous years. 
 
 Where public opinion viewed such crimes with perfect apathy, it 
 was no easy task for any body of police to work effectively. Never- 
 theless, in an amazingly short time Mr. Campbell had reorganised 
 the whole force, and brought it into such excellent working order as 
 to call forth the highest commendation from Sir Hercules, to whom 
 Mr. Campbell then reported that his aim was to raise the police 
 to such a point that llu- Ceylon Rifles (an expensive native regiment 
 with European officers) might be altogether dispensed with. 
 
 However desirable, such a project then seemed quite beyond the 
 range df possibilities. However, soon afterwards Mr. Campbell was 
 sent to Penang as Lieutenant-Governor for eighteen months, and 
 
 1 Nov, Sir George \V. R. Campbell, K.C.M.G.
 
 478 TJJ'O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 thence came to England on sick-leave. On his return to Ceylon, he 
 found that during his absence the Ceylon Rifles had actually been 
 disbanded as unnecessary, thereby effecting a very large saving for 
 the colony. 
 
 A considerable number of the disbanded soldiers (mostly Malays) 
 were drafted into the police, which incorporates men of very varied 
 nationalities — British, Portuguese, Dutch, Singhalese, Tamils, and 
 Burghers of mixed race, welding the whole into a remarkably fine 
 and efficient force numbering about 1,470. 
 
 The men are smart and soldierly, and may be described as civil 
 police with a semi-military training. The thick tight-fitting jacket 
 and trousers and stiff leather stock were at once discarded in favour 
 of a suitable and becoming uniform, consisting of tunic and trousers 
 of dark blue serge, with waist-belt and boots of dark brown leather, 
 and scarlet forage-cap with a black top-knot. They are armed with 
 Snider rifles and swords, and are regularly drilled, but except when 
 on gaol guard or guarding convicts or treasure, they only carry 
 batons. 
 
 Their total cost to the general revenue is set down at 401,831 
 rupees per annum ; that of the old force was about 150,000 rupees. 
 The present outlay includes many such items as the feeding and 
 transport of prisoners and of sick paupers, cost of working the 
 elaborate and very efficient systems of registration of servants and 
 carts, and many other matters ; and well may Mr. Campbell say, 
 when pleading for a greatly strengthened detective branch, ' No 
 country in the East has so small or nearly so cheap a force as 
 Ceylon.' 'Can it be expected that 1,500 poorly paid police, more 
 than half of whom are employed to guard convicts and treasuries 
 and to keep order in the streets — can it be expected that this hand- 
 ful of men, scattered throughout a country nearly as large as Ireland, 
 and with a population numbering nearly three millions, and criminal 
 to an unusual extent^ can bring a large majorit}- of the worst criminals 
 to justice? 
 
 'Whereas Ireland, with a population a little more than double 
 that of Ceylon, has about 13,000 police with 300 officers, Ceylon 
 (with only seven officers in receipt of upwards of 1,500 rupees per 
 annum, which, valuing the rupee at \s. dd.., represents ^,^1 12 i6s. per 
 annum) has under 1,500 police. Even this small force is employed on 
 such duties as guarding convict gangs on public works, such as the 
 saltpans at Hambantota, the Mahara quarries, the breakwater, &c.
 
 NATIVE POLICE 479 
 
 They are, further, the only relieving officers of the vagrant portion 
 of the helpless poor ; they must attend to vaccination, sanitation of 
 places of pilgrimage, the weights and measures of dealers, storage of 
 kerosine, gunpowder, &c., and they are now the gaolers of several of 
 the minor gaols.' 
 
 Till within the last few years there were no harbour-police, so 
 that all work of this sort likewise fell on the regular force. Now the 
 development of Colombo harbour has necessitated the appointment 
 of a harbour-inspector with a couple of whaleboats and about six- 
 teen men specially for this work. The police are now scattered over 
 the country in ninety-four different detachments, and considering 
 that there are on an average only four of the regular police at each 
 station in rural districts to look after about a hundred square miles 
 of cultivated land, all liable to crop-thieving, and that they have to 
 escort and guard prisoners, keep order in one or two large village 
 bazaars, and by their presence deter crop-thieves and purchasers of 
 such stolen goods, take care of sick wayfarers, and serve all the 
 countless summonses and warrants that may be issued, it is evident 
 that they cannot eat the bread of idleness. In the whole force there 
 is not a single mounted constable, so all the work must be done on 
 foot. In each province, however, the Government Agent has a body 
 of untrained and unpaid village police, who in some measure lighten 
 the toil of the regular police. 
 
 Some idea of the miscellaneous work which falls on the police 
 department might be gathered from a single detail of its office-work, 
 namely, that about 70,000 documents are annually received and 
 despatched from the two chief offices alone, Le.^ Kandy and 
 Colombo. 
 
 At these two points the police barracks are a perfect triumph of 
 ingenuity, so admirable is the result produced for the money ex- 
 pended, both as regards the construction of really handsome build- 
 ings at a very low cost, and also in the excellent taste displayed in 
 the careful laying out of the grounds, with such profusion of flower- 
 ing trees and shrubs, that the whole effect is that of luxuriant 
 gardens. 
 
 This is especially striking at Kew, a peninsula on the Colombo 
 Lake, formerly occupied by the Ceylon Rifles, whose barracks, with 
 their dreary muddy surroundings, have been transformed by Mr. 
 Campbell and his men into a scene of beauty. Here and at Bentota 
 the gorgeous display of Gloriosa superba and other splendid climbing
 
 48o Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 plants remains vividly impressed on my memory. The same care is 
 shown wherever a police-station has been established in various parts 
 of the Isle, and at elevations ranging up to 7,000 feet, so that these 
 are in a measure experimental gardens for new products. 
 
 It is greatly to be desired that these should quickly multiply, for 
 as yet very many police-stations are still without any Government 
 buildings, consequently ordinary dwelling-houses are hired to act as 
 ofifices and lock-ups, while the constables have to hire quarters for 
 themselves, often widely scattered, and sometimes in very undesirable 
 company. The married men, who constitute more than two-thirds 
 of the force, have to pay about one-eighth of their whole slender 
 salary for the use of very wretched huts. 
 
 This is doubly hard, as not only are the necessaries of life much 
 dearer in Ceylon than on the mainland of India, but the rate of pay 
 in all ranks is from a quarter to half that of the corresponding rank 
 in the Indian police. Even the Inspector-General, after serving ten 
 years in the Bombay police, and after twenty-four years of ceaseless 
 toil in Ceylon, has received only 1,000 rupees a month, which is 
 the average pay of a Superintendent of Police in India. But the 
 generally low scale of pay is more apparent by comparing the weekly 
 2)is. 6d. of a first-class London constable with the salary of the 
 European constables in Ceylon, most of whom receive less than 10s, 
 a week, minus several deductions ! 
 
 Now, as regards our primary notions of the j-aison d'etre of a 
 police force, namely, the detection and suppression of crime, I con- 
 fess it was to me almost incredible when I was first told of the 
 deeply-rooted criminal tendencies of the Singhalese — these civil 
 people, seemingly so mild and gentle, so courteous and sympathetic 
 to strangers — to hear of many being savage and cruel to one another, 
 cherishing anger, wrath, malice, jealousy, railing, and revenge, re- 
 sulting in a terribly large proportion of robberies, violent quarrels, 
 and murders, was certainly a grievous revelation. Yet alas ! it is all 
 too true, and the police reports present a dreadful catalogue of most 
 callous murders, generally on account of the merest trifle, the victim 
 being often some one to whonr the murderer bears no ill-will, per- 
 haps even his own near relation, and the sole cause is that a false 
 charge of murder may be brought against some innocent person, 
 against whom he has a spite ! Imagine murdering a friend in order 
 to throw blame on a foe ! 
 
 But the larger number of murders are the result of momentary
 
 NATIVE POLICE 481 
 
 passion — it is a word and a stab, and these, alas ! multiply only too 
 surely with the ever-spreading curses of drink and gambling, ' the 
 prolific parents of Singhalese vice.' 
 
 No one can fail to be struck with the singularly small proportion 
 of women who find their way to the prisons of Ceylon. The daily 
 average of convicted persons in prison in the last twelve years ranges 
 from 1,612 (of whom only 17 were women) to 3,627 (of whom only 
 32 were women). Mr. Campbell questioned a number of the most 
 intelligent prisoners as to what cause they attributed this difference 
 to. ' Our women do not drink nor gamble,' was the reply. 
 
 All agreed that these two evils lay at the root of all their trouble. 
 Not only do illicit drinking-houses provide gambling facilities to 
 attract customers, but the men frequent secluded gardens, and 
 arrange lonely meeting-places in the forest, whither each carries his 
 own supply of liquor, and then they settle down to gamble, betting 
 (heads-and-tails fashion) on the throw of certain shells, flat on one 
 side, round on the other. 
 
 Some men, whose whole year's earning would barely exceed a 
 hundred rupees, confessed to having lost or won two hundred at a 
 sitting. Then, after this excitement, some are sulky, some desperate, 
 and the majority more than half drunk. Then the beggared, reckless 
 men begin quarrelling, and most cruel murders ensue, in which the 
 victim is sometimes struck a score of times, the others probably 
 going off to recruit their fortunes by robbery or cattle-lifting. 
 
 A large number of deaths are caused by blows from clubs or 
 bludgeons, but a still larger proportion are due to stabbing with the 
 sharp-pointed sheath-knife which a Singhalese habitually carries in 
 his belt for pruning and other agricultural work, and which proves 
 only too handy in every moment of passion. It is urged that a law 
 forbidding the use of these implements, and enforcing that of clasp- 
 knives, would be beneficial, as the moment required for opening a 
 clasp-knife would give time for thought ; especially if it happily 
 closed on the fingers of the passionate man, it might tend to cool his 
 ardour, the average Singhalese, like the brutal Briton, being very 
 averse to pain. Hence the excellent deterrent influence of flogging 
 —a tolerably liberal use of the lash or the rattan (cane) having been 
 found highly efficacious in diminishing cattle-stealing in some of the 
 worst districts. 
 
 That the ever-present, ever-open sheath-knife is largely re- 
 sponsible for Singhalese crime is shown by the fact that nearly all 
 
 I I
 
 482 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 the murderers are of this race ; whereas the Tamils, who do not 
 habitually wear these knives, though continually being convicted of 
 aggravated assault, almost invariably stop short of murder. 
 
 It is worthy of note that in almost all murder cases the victim 
 and his assailant are of the same nationality— Tamil against Tamil, 
 Singhalese against Singhalese, Malay against Malay — provoking the 
 absence of any race animosity. 
 
 I think a few samples of cases quoted from the police reports will 
 be of interest, and in any case, the native names are characteristic. 
 
 First, then, I find that Ponambalam, a Tamil man, having been 
 locked up for drunkenness, made a desperate rush to escape. 
 Noordeen Bawa, a police-constable, stopped him, when Ponam- 
 balam seized Noordeen's thumb of the right hand in his teeth, and 
 held it for half an hour. It could not be released till Ponambalam's 
 teeth were forced apart with a chisel. Poor Noordeen, whose thumb 
 was nearly bitten through, died of tetanus. 
 
 Puchirale, a Singhalese cultivator, was on a tree in the jungle 
 picking fruit, when Appuhamy, also a Singhalese cultivator, fired and 
 killed him. He said he had mistaken him for a monkey, but as 
 they had been on bad terms, Appuhamy was put on his trial, but Avas 
 acquitted. 
 
 Urugala, a wealthy Singhalese cultivator, aged sixty-five, having 
 signified his intention of distributing his property among his children 
 to the exclusion of his son Ukkurala, the latter beat his father wit]i a 
 piece of sui^ar-cane, so that he died. 
 
 At Patticaloa a man (luarrelled with his mother about a cow, and 
 killed her with a stick. For this he received four months' imprison- 
 ment. 
 
 Appuwa, a Singhalese cultivator, while drunk, slabbed with a 
 knife and so killed his little daughter Kirihami, aged four years, 
 owing lo a quarrel with his wife for not having his food ready. He 
 was acquitted. 
 
 Abaran, a Singhalese, was shot dead by Sirimalhami, whose 
 mistress Abaran had carried off some months previously. Two 
 young men helped Sirimalhami to remove the body to a jungle and 
 there burn it. The two assistants were each sentenced to five years' 
 rigorous imprisonment, but the murderer was acquitted. 
 
 Near Matara, eight Singhalese set upon one, and hacked him to 
 death with choppers and sticks. Three were sentenced to ten years 
 with hard labour, but the rest were acquitted.
 
 NATIVE POLICE 483 
 
 Muttu Menika, a Singhalese girl of fifteen, was stabbed seventeen 
 times by Dingirea, a Singhalese man twenty-four years of age, because 
 she refused to marry him. He was sentenced to death. 
 
 Till recently all the inmates of a house were sometimes brutally 
 murdered by robbers in order to get rid of inconvenient witnesses ; 
 but this was a characteristic of a form of gang-robberies now ha2:)pily 
 stamped out. 
 
 As examples of crime in 18S9, Harmanis Soyza, a Singhalese 
 fisher aged twenty-five, having deserted his mistress, Siku, a 
 Singhalese girl aged twenty, and being taunted by her and her 
 mother, became infuriated, and entering their house, stabbed and 
 killed them both, also stabbing and grievously wounding Siku's sister, 
 Punchi Nona. 
 
 Balina, a Singhalese washerwoman, having quarrelled with Sunda, 
 a neighbour, set fire to his house, and then stabbed him so that he 
 died, for which she was sentenced to death. 
 
 That the amount of jewellery worn by children does not oftener 
 lead them into peril is surprising. Here, however, is a case in point. 
 Sinnasamy, a Tamil coolie, cut the throat of Ramer, a Tamil school- 
 boy aged eight, in order to steal his bangles, watch-chain, and two 
 pairs of earrings. Sinnasamy was hanged, as he deserved to be. 
 
 Mataraye Samel, a Singhalese servant, struck Babie, an ayah, on 
 the head with an areca-nut cutter, because she told her mistress of 
 his intimacy with a girl in the house. Lock-jaw supervened and 
 poor IJabie died, whereupon Samel was sentenced to ten years' hard 
 labour. 
 
 Velen Sinnatambu, a Tamil, aged twenty-five, in a fit of rage 
 hacked his wife, Sinnapillai, to pieces with a chopper. She was a 
 girl under sixteen years of age. The murderer was hanged. 
 
 Even peaceful green pastures can be made the occasion of battle 
 in Ceylon as well as in the Hebrides. Thus at Jaffna, Velan 
 Kanapathi was killed, and Arumugan Kanapathi seriously injured, by 
 being struck with stones in a quarrel about rights of pasturage. Ten 
 men, all Tamils, were apprehended on this charge. 
 
 In the same district three Tamil men entered the house of a 
 fourth, armed with clubs and a sharp-edged stone, and fractured his 
 skull. Each was sentenced to ten years' rigorous imprisonment, 
 Another skull was fractured by a heavy stone at beautiful Matara, in 
 an altercation over the produce of a kitool-palm tree. 
 
 Most extraordinary cases of murder are those which are done
 
 484 T^^^'O llAPPy YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 solely in order to bring a false accusation against someone else. At 
 Galle, Nicholas de Silva Madanayeke took his own child, twelve 
 months old, and dashed it to the ground ; then accused three young 
 men of good character of having killed it. Happily they were ac- 
 quitted and the inlumian father was hanged within tlie walls of (lalle 
 goal. 
 
 Another case is that of a man who shot his own brother in order 
 to Ijring a charge of murder against three enemies, while another 
 knocked out the brains of his own little daughter in order to get his 
 father-in-law hanged for the murder. 
 
 Near Kurunegalla, a Singhalese boy, aged twelve, was strangled 
 by Hatuhami, a Singhalese man, in order that the murder might be 
 attributed to some Buddhist priests with whom he was at enmity. For 
 this, Hatuhami was sentenced to five years' hard labour. 
 
 Here is a more elaborate story of a case which occurred in 1879. 
 A young Singhalese girl, possessed of some land, had just died. Two 
 men induced another Singhalese girl to personate her, and to appear 
 before a notary and make over the land to them. The fraud was 
 discovered, and in order to prevent the whole story from being re- 
 vealed, the men dragged the luckless girl night after night from one 
 jungle to another, till she told them that life was a burden to her ; 
 whereupon they killed her, and cut off her head to prevent identifi- 
 cation in case the body should be found. Found it was, and identi- 
 fied by the toes, which were partially webbed. The men were hanged. 
 
 One is struck by the pitifully small temptation which results in 
 such cruel murders. For instance, Babiela, a Singhalese villager, had 
 a trifling dispute with a neighbour, and knowing that he possessed 
 jewels worth about 200 rupees (less than ;^2o), he stole quietly into 
 the house at midnight, and cut the throats of the man, his wife, and 
 four children. This miscreant was hanged. 
 
 I will only quote two more cases, each full of dramatic interest, 
 only premising that though all the names are Portuguese, all the 
 dramatis persona; are pure Singhalese. The first is that of Miguel 
 Perera, a wealthy and influential Singhalese, living within ten miles of 
 Colombo, and a man popular with Europeans because of his pleasant 
 manners, and on account of his great energy and influence among his 
 people. When anything had to be done quickly, such as the repair 
 of a road or the decoration of a town to welcome a distinguished 
 visitor, he was the man to be depended on. For these good services 
 he received from Government the title of Mudaliyar of Ragama.
 
 NATIVE POLICE 485 
 
 But there was a dark side to this attractive person. In his private 
 hfe he was unscrupulous and tyrannical, both to men and women, and 
 when one day he was found at high noon lying on a road on his own 
 estate with his throat cut, the investigation proved that the crime 
 had been committed by some of his own retainers, goaded to mad- 
 ness by his ill-usage, one detail of which was that after cruelly beating 
 a man, he would lock him up for the night in stocks, which he kept 
 at his own house. 
 
 Four men were apprehended, and the evidence would almost un- 
 doubtedly have proved them to be murderers. But it seems as if 
 the Singhalese could not leave justice to prove itself, so the two 
 eldest sons of the dead man set to work to torture witnesses in order 
 to fabricate further evidence, chiefly with a view to implicate an 
 enemy of their father's, Louis Mendis. Tampering with witnesses 
 is an everyday occurrence, but torturing them is going a little too far ; 
 so when this conspiracy came to light, the tables were turned — the 
 murderers were acquitted, and the two brothers were each sentenced 
 to three years' imprisonment with hard labour. 
 
 The Louis Mendis just mentioned was a cart-contractor, living at 
 Nawalapitiya, in the Central Province, and the quarrel with Miguel 
 Perera was due to the latter sending carters all the way from the 
 coast to take away his custom. Mendis, not unnaturally, urged his own 
 men to beat the intruders, and on one occasion, when he had primed 
 his men with much arrack, a savage encounter occurred, in which a 
 young carter from the coast, by name Juan Fernando, was said to have 
 been killed. There was evidence of Fernando having been seen 
 wounded, especially on the shoulder, but no corpse could be found, 
 and Mendis and his party averred that the story of his death was a 
 fabrication in order to damage Mendis, and that Perera was keeping 
 Fernando out of sight. 
 
 Several months later the father came from his home on the coast 
 to inform the police that he could point out the spot where his son's 
 body was buried. He accordingly led them to a spot in the jungle 
 some miles from Nawalapitiya, and there they found the headless and 
 decomposed corpse of a young man with a broken shouldcr-bkadc, 
 and on the body was found the waist-belt of the missing Juan 
 Fernando, with his initials scratched on the plate. It was assumed 
 that the body had been carried to the jungle, and there buried by a 
 carter in the service of Mendis, who, however, was not available as a 
 witness, having, in the interval, been hanged for stabbing a police-
 
 486 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 constable. Consequently, Mendis and his men were punished only 
 for assault, being sentenced to terms of imprisonment with hard 
 labour. 
 
 They maintain, however, that Juan ]*'ernando is still alive, and 
 concealed by Perera's party, and that the body was one taken by 
 Perera's order from some graveyard, adorned with Pernando's belt, 
 and buried in the jungle in order to ruin INIendis, the head being re- 
 moved in order to prevent its being proved that the body was not 
 that of Pernando. (Of course Perera's people say the head was 
 removed to prevent identification ; but if that had been the case, it 
 would have been a strange oversight to leave the belt with the tell- 
 tale initials.) 
 
 These instances may suffice to give some idea of the chief difficulty 
 which attends all judicial inquiries in Ceylon, namely, that of dealing 
 with a race who, so far from attaching any disgrace to perjury, con- 
 sider it as a fine art, and that the courts of law are the field where it 
 may be most effectually and brilliantly practised. INIr. Campl)cll says, 
 ' Perjury is rampant and destructive, flooding our courts with false 
 cases, paralysing their action, and producing grave deterioration of 
 character.' 
 
 In his recent report on the administration of police in Ceylon, 
 Mr. Giles^ observes : 'The most dangerous form of crime in Ceylon, 
 and that which perhaps involves the greatest moral turpitude, is the 
 proneness of the people to prefer false accusations and to bear false 
 testimony. No man can feel safe while this state of things continues ; 
 and the evils are by no means confined to the individuals falsely 
 accused. The prevalence of perjury causes the judiciary to reject 
 evidence which, in a purer atmosphere, would be unhesitatingly 
 accepted, and criminals benefit by this reluctance. The courts are 
 flooded with cases which should never come before them, their time 
 dissipated in vainly endeavouring to aiTive at truth where all is false- 
 hood, and a virtual denial of justice often leads to the perpetration of 
 fresh crime.' 
 
 A somewhat striking illustration of this all-round falsehood was 
 revealed to an astonished European by a grateful client, who had 
 recently won a case to the utter amazement of his adversary. The 
 latter had brought an action against him for the recovery of a large 
 sum of money, for which he held defendant's bond. There were 
 reliable witnesses to prove the debt, and the case was apparently 
 1 Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Bengal.
 
 NATIVE POLICE 487 
 
 quite clear, till the defendant produced the plaintiff's receipt in full 
 for the sum advanced and duly repaid, and a tribe of witnesses to 
 prove the authenticity of the signature. Nothing could be clearer, 
 and the case, after patient hearing, was dismissed. 
 
 Now came the surprising revelation, which was that there had 
 been no money lent and none 7-epaid ; but from the moment the 
 defendant had learnt the charge that was to be brought against him, 
 he had been perfectly aware that a bond must have been forged, and 
 witnesses bribed to attest it ; therefore (on the principle of 
 ' diamond cut diamond '), he had at once secured the services of a 
 skilful forger to prepare the receipt, and of witnesses to attest it, and 
 had thus by foul means secured the justice which he could not have 
 obtained by fair straightforward action. 
 
 This is a fair example of the manner in which the criminal law 
 is employed as ' an engine of oppression rather than of redress ; ' and 
 to such an incredible extent is this perversion of justice carried, that 
 in his report for 1881 Mr. Campbell says that from 95,000 to 110,000 
 persons are each year apprehended or summoned before the courts 
 and never brought to trial, showing either the utter frivolity of the 
 cases, or that the complainants or witnesses, or both, have been 
 bought over. 
 
 ' Even these figures,' he says, ' large as they are, give no idea of 
 the extent to which the machinery of justice is misused by the people 
 to oppress and harass each other, and actually to frustrate justice 
 itself, until we take into account the cloud of witnesses who arc also 
 brought up by summons and warrants, and further take into account 
 the multiplied postponements which characterise our courts, and 
 unless we still further recollect the multitude of minor cases which 
 are annually tried by the Gansabhawa or village tribunals. These, in 
 the course of the year 1880, numbered no less than 26,748. 
 
 ' The results of this inordinate misuse of the courts are the im- 
 poverishment of the people both by a waste of time and by actual 
 expenditure on worthless crowds of self-styled lawyers, the fostering 
 of their innate love of litigation, the encouraging of false witnesses 
 and perjury, the general demoralisation which follows the prostitution 
 of courts of justice, and the obstruction of the thorough investigation 
 and punishment of serious crime. Better that a man should at his 
 own proper peril strike a blow with a slick, or e\en with a knife, 
 than that, by making false and malicious charges, he should make 
 a court of justice an instrument for inflicting a cowardly blow. The
 
 488 Tiro NAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 blow l)y the court is quite as severe as the other, and the de- 
 morahsation of every one concerned is infinitely greater.' It has 
 been tersely said that ' perjury is made so complete a business that 
 cases are as regularly rehearsed in all their various scenes by the 
 professional perjurer as a dramatic piece is at a theatre.' 
 
 Of course, when it is so impossible for a judge to know who or 
 what to believe, true evidence is constantly rejected, criminals 
 escape, and innocent people suffer unmerited punishment, or at least 
 retain a rankling sense of injustice which leads to retaliation, either 
 in the form of false charges in court or of criminal violence. 
 
 This subject impressed itself strongly on Mr. Campbell on his 
 first arrival in 1866, when, at the court at Panadure, out of six 
 hundred cases instituted there were only six convictions. Of course, 
 such immunity from punishment tends to prevalence of crime, the 
 chances of conviction being so small that heinous offences are com- 
 mitted with little risk ; for nothing is easier than to bribe all the 
 witnesses, and probably the headman, whose duty it should be to 
 prosecute, and sometimes even the plaintiff himself is bribed ! 
 
 As regards the headmen, it is only natural that they should be 
 amenable to bribes, for instead of receiving remuneration for helping 
 in the detection of crime and the capture of criminals, by doing so 
 they often have to incur serious expense out of their own slender 
 means ; so naturally it conduces both to their ease and profit to 
 screen offenders. 
 
 The number of convictions fluctuates greatly, not from increase 
 or decrease of crime, but according to the varied interpretation of 
 law by successive Chief-Justices. In some years the interpretation 
 has been such that convictions have been almost impossible, and so 
 the most glaring criminals have been acquitted, and all their 
 fraternity, openly laughing at the police, become bold beyond 
 measure. Then comes a Chief-Justice who interprets laws 
 differently ; criminals find their deserts, and a comparative lull 
 ensues. 
 
 Mr. Campbell has for years striven to effect the introduction of 
 various simple measures with a view to lessening some of the evils com- 
 plained of. Such are the preliminary investigation of cases ere granting 
 warrants and summonses wholesale. This was instituted in 1872, 
 as was also the payment of a trifiing stamp duty, amounting only to 
 15 cents on each criminal charge and 5 cents on each subpama of 
 an accused person, or of one summoned jis a witness,
 
 NATIVE POLICE 489 
 
 Incredible as it may seem, these petty and vexatious cases, which 
 in 1871 had numbered 68,832, at once fell to 46,701 in 1872 ! That 
 stamp fees amounting to a few pence should in one year have kept 
 22,131 cases out of court is good proof of how frivolous and false 
 were the pretexts for litigation. 
 
 Unfortunately, in 1888 the process was in a measure reversed. 
 The 25-cent duty was taken off of all charges of voluntarily causing 
 hurt, consequently the list of one class of cases rose in one year 
 from 6,820 to 20,052, mainly owing to utterly frivolous, and certainly in 
 most cases false charges ; the lesson to be learnt being that 'the trifling 
 tax suffices to deter a large number of vindictive, idle, litigious people 
 from using the courts as engines to oppress their neighbours.' 
 
 In one very common class of accusation, against which no man 
 can be safe, namely, that of grave immorality, the whole question 
 tarns on which man can bribe the largest number of false witnesses, 
 and the innocent accused is very often obliged to purchase safety by 
 paying his accuser to let the charge drop. 
 
 If the besetting sin of the Singhalese is their inordinate love of 
 litigation, this certainly is fostered by their very troublesome law of 
 inheritance, which results in such minute subdivisions of property 
 that the 199th share of a field, or a 50th of a small garden containing 
 perhaps a dozen palms and a few plantains, becomes a fruitful source 
 of legal contention, quarrels, and crime. Emerson Tennant alludes 
 to a case in which the claim was for the 2,520th share in the produce 
 of ten cocoa-palms ! 
 
 As a sample of this sort of litigation, the Rev. R. Spence Hardy 
 quoted an instance of an intricate claim on disputed property, in 
 which the case of the plaintiff was as follows : ' By inheritance 
 through my father I am entitled to one-fourth of one-third of one- 
 eighth. Through my mother I am further entitled to one-fourth of 
 one-third of one-eighth. By purchase from one set of co-heirs I am 
 entitled to one-ninety-sixth, from another set also one-ninety-sixth, 
 and from a third set one-ninety-sixth more. Finally, from a fourth 
 set of co-heirs I have purchased the 144th of the whole.' There is a 
 nice question to solve ere a landowner can begin to till his field or 
 reap its produce. 
 
 But though these difficult ([uestions must always have proved a 
 fruitful source of contention, it is only in recent years that the number 
 of gentlemen of the legal profession has increased so enormously. 
 Mr. Spence Hardy, writing in 1864, stated that sixty years previously
 
 490 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 there were in the Isle only two Dutchmen who did the whole work 
 of advocates. Even in that time the number had increased to i6 
 advocates, 135 proctors, and 144 notaries. 
 
 Now, as we enter on the last decade of the century, there are 
 about 300 advocates and proctors, and solicitors and notaries have 
 increased in proportion, besides an incalculable brood of self-styled 
 lawyers of the lowest species, who infest every village tribunal, 'out- 
 door proctors,' as they are called, who gain their own living by 
 inciting the people to litigation, till the whole country is flooded 
 with warrants and summonses, resulting in a large proportion of the 
 population spending their time either in the courts or on the road 
 between them and their houses, greatly to their own impoverish- 
 ment. 
 
 It is, perhaps, not to be wondered at that so many favour a i)ro- 
 fession in which the highest honours are equally open to all without 
 distinction of race — Singhalese or Tamil, Portuguese or Dutch, 
 Eurasian or European, have equal chances in the race for distinction 
 as barristers, magistrates, or judges. 
 
 In looking over the list of these legal names, I am much struck 
 by observing how curiously certain names predominate in certain 
 districts. Thus among the notaries in the Southern Province I find 
 twenty-one De Silvas, distinguished by such high-sounding first 
 names as Goonewardene, Sameresingha, AVickremanaike, Raja- 
 kuruna, &c. Turning to the Colombo district, I find in succession 
 fourteen of the family of Pererawith such Christian names as Andris, 
 Juan, Paulus, Manual, «S:c. Of the multitude of De and Don there 
 is no end, by no means necessarily implying Portuguese descent, 
 but because so many of the families of purest Singhalese and 
 Kandyan blood took these names from the godfather of their 
 Christian baptism ; thus we have Don Philip de Alvis, Don Charles 
 Appuhamy, Don Carolis Senevaratna, Don Francisco Weresakara, 
 Don Johanis Amarasakara, Domingo De Mendis.' 
 
 Some historical suggestion may perhaps be gathered from the 
 
 1 I trust these gentlemen will pardon my quoting real names to illustrate an in- 
 teresting subject. 
 
 As a sample of pleasant names for daily use, I cannot resist quoting a paragraph 
 from a Ceylon paper which happens to be lying before me : — 
 
 ' A MuRDEKKR Wanted. — Indunuvabadahelage Tema of Talawala, charged with 
 the murder, on July 20th last, of one Pepiliyanebadahelage Barlis Barbos, has fled 
 from justice. A large reward is offered for such information as shall lead to his ap- 
 prehension and conviction,'
 
 NATIVE POLICE 491 
 
 geographical distribution of these names. Thus in the hst of notaries 
 for the district of Colombo, I observe nine with the prefix De, and 
 upward of forty with that of Don. In Kalutara, out of fifty-one, 
 twenty-three own these honorific prefixes. Ratnapura has sixteen 
 notaries, not one prefix. In the Central Province a dozen in a 
 hundred arc thus distinguished. In the Eastern and Northern Pro- 
 vinces, including Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Jaffna, and IManaar, there 
 is not one. In the Southern Province, out of a total of about fifty, 
 twenty-four are De and only one Don. In the North-West Province, 
 Chilaw owns one in fifteen, and Kurunegalla, out of a list of twenty- 
 seven, furnishes one Don. 
 
 It would be interesting to know whether the names accepted in 
 the last century as a passport to State employment retain any special 
 traditionary interest for their present owners. 
 
 Where so many have elected to earn their own bread by 
 fostering the natural love of litigation among their countrymen, it 
 follows that the blessing of the peacemakers is the last thing to be 
 desired, and the longer a case can be spun out, and the oftener it 
 is postponed, the better for the lawyers. In this respect matters 
 have not mended since, in 1849, Major Thomas Skinner wrote: 
 ' The prevailing system of our district courts admits of the proctors 
 feeding upon their client for years. ... I have seen instances 
 wherein the judicial stamps have far exceeded the value of the 
 case under adjudication, and which, by numberless vexatious post- 
 ponements, have been protracted over a period of many years, to the 
 ruin of both plaintiff and defendant — the proctors by their fees, and the 
 Government by the sale of judicial stamps, being the only gainers.' 
 
 For one thing, criminal cases are constantly brought to court so 
 ill prepared as to necessitate being postponed again and again, thus 
 wasting the time of magistrates, prosecutors, and witnesses. 
 
 Another thing by which the business of the courts is very un- 
 necessarily delayed is by the invariable employment of magistrates' 
 interpreters. In India, where in each Presidency there are so many 
 different languages, each magistrate is bound to master whatever is 
 requisite for the conduct of his own court, interpreters being only 
 employed in the supreme courts. In Ceylon, although there are 
 only two native languages, in which every newcomer has to pass 
 examinations, every word spoken in court, every question and every 
 answer, must be repeated through an interpreter, just doubling the 
 work and the time expended.
 
 492 rnV HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Among the cases which call for considerable detective skill are 
 those of forging bank-notes and coins, the former being generally the 
 joint work of professional engravers and sur\-eyors, while the false 
 rupees, though generally manufactured by Singhalese goldsmiths, arc 
 occasionally proved to be the handiwork of Buddhist priests, who 
 have acquired the requisite skill by casting images of Buddha ! The 
 Buddhist priests are said to be the chief money-lenders and usurers, 
 and it is whispered that they contribute rather a large proportion to 
 the catalogue of felons, though, to avoid scandal, they are generally 
 unrobed before trial. Some years ago, however, one was hanged in 
 full canonicals, just to show that British law is no respecter of 
 persons. 
 
 As regards deaths from violence or accident, the statistics for 
 1889 show that during that year inquests were held in the Isle on 
 the bodies of 2,166 persons. But there must have been many more 
 whose deaths were never heard of — men and women who from sick- 
 ness or weakness perished by lonely roadsides, or were killed by wild 
 beasts in jungles, or murdered and secretly buried, to say nothing of 
 those drowned in the sea, the rivers, lakes, and tanks. 
 
 Among the details of these deaths are 125 suicides, of whom 21 
 drowned themselves and the rest hanged themselves, 1 2 1 died from 
 snake-bites, 87 by accidentally drowning in rivers and tanks, 134 by 
 falling into wells, 383 l)y falling from trees, and 2)2> ^^om gunshot 
 wounds. (The increasing misuse of firearms forms a notable feature 
 in recent police reports.) Almost every year wild beasts are re- 
 sponsible for a certain proportion of deaths ; bears, elephants, chetahs, 
 boars, buffaloes, alligators, and even hornets and bees, each doing 
 their part in thus thinning the population. 
 
 To glance at the pleasanter aspects of police-work in Ceylon, 
 one of Mr. Campbell's most successful schemes has been the Servants' 
 Registration Ordinance, by which every servant is bound to have a 
 pocket-register, in which his antecedents are recorded, as are also 
 the beginning and end of each new service, and the character he 
 has acquired in each. The registrars are assistant-superintendents 
 of police. The scheme has proved invaluable in the prevention of 
 one of the commonest forms of burglary, made easy by the connivance 
 of servants. 
 
 Alas ! here as elsewhere familiarity with the white race does not 
 always tend to raise them in the veneration of their brown brothers. 
 J^Ir, Campbell says : ' The days have gone by in which we coul4
 
 NATIVE POLICE - 493 
 
 leave the house-door unbarred during the night. Much of the old 
 contentedness and of the old respect for the European has gone, and 
 new wants and excitements — amongst them drinking and gambling — 
 must be satisfied.' 
 
 In a country whose wealth consists so largely in its crops, these 
 of course, are a continual source of temptation to thieves, not only 
 in the wide extent of growing crops, which it is scarcely possible for 
 I)lanters to guard, but still more when these are gathered and travel- 
 ling from the store to the market. Take, for instance, the transport 
 of coffee from a plantation in Uva to Colombo, a distance of perhaps 
 two hundred miles, by road, river, and either lake or rail. Each cart- 
 load is worth about 1,000 rupees, each boat-load about 10,000 rupees. 
 
 Under the old system each cart-load was intrusted to the sole 
 care of a carter, and each boat-load to that of a crew, of whom, in 
 either case, ' the senders generally knew absolutely nothing, and in 
 whose honesty they had every cause to disbelieve ! ' The conse- 
 quence was that whole cart-loads sometimes disappeared. In one 
 case the police had the satisfaction of convicting a carter and a native 
 agent who had thus appropriated 400 bushels of coffee, valued at 
 4,500 rupees ! Less audacious thieves were content with freely 
 helping themselves from the coffee-bags. These carts were lost sight 
 of for weeks ; and the coffee which travelled from Ratnapura to 
 Colombo by river, canal, and lake was at the mercy of the boatmen, 
 who could halt for as many days as they saw fit, and call the aid of 
 their families to manipulate it as they pleased. 
 
 So that throughout its long journey the coffee was subject to 
 pilfering at the hands of drivers, boatmen, and other depredators, 
 who sometimes stole half the good beans and filled up the sacks with 
 inferior ones, or else made up weight and bulk by swelling the re- 
 mainder with water, so that it reached the London market deteriorated 
 in colour and in value. 
 
 To counteract this mischief, Mr. Campbell devised a simple and 
 very effectual system of cart registration. He established police- 
 stations at regular intervals along the road and river from Ratnapura 
 to Kalutara (whence the sea-coast railway conveys the freight to 
 Colombo), and each loaded cart or boat is compelled to report it- 
 self at each of these stations, whence the exact date of its arrival and 
 start is intimated day by day to the Chamber of Commerce at 
 Colombo. Thus the precious produce is under strict care through- 
 out its journey, and theft becomes well-nigh impossible.
 
 494 
 
 TIFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 The regulation of pilgrimages and the strict sanitation of pilgrim 
 camps is another of the schemes devised and excellently enforced 
 by Mr. Campbell, thereby preventing a very large amount of suffer- 
 ing and mortality, and the too probable development of cholera in 
 the Isle. 
 
 The system of police registration of all dogs is so rigidly enforced 
 ill the principal towns, that Ceylon is in a great measure exempt 
 from hydrophobia. Each registered dog must wear a stamped 
 municipal collar, obtained by his owner on payment of a small fee, 
 and any luckless dogs not provided with this safeguard are captured 
 and carried in a large cage on wheels to a pond, where, unless 
 claimed within forty-eight hours, they are either shot or drowned (by 
 bodily immersing the cage in water). 
 
 A matter which has involved much care and thought has been 
 how to check cruelty to animals in this land, where (by the teaching 
 of Buddha being carried out in the letter and utterly neglected in 
 the spirit) life must not be taken— at least not the life of lower 
 animals, for that of human beings is by no means so secure ! But 
 suffering is of no consequence. The cruelty so common in Ceylon 
 is not wanton, as in too many countries, but seems to arise from 
 sheer callousness to the tortures which are carelessly inflicted on 
 poor suffering creatures. Thus deer, hares, snipe, doves, <S:c., badly 
 wounded and with broken bones, are kept alive for days and hawked 
 about in hopes of obtaining a sale. Six or eight fowls are tightly 
 tied together by the feet, and are then strung, head downwards, from 
 the ends of a stick balanced on the shoulder, and are thus carried 
 for miles, cackling in anguish, till they are too weak and suffering to 
 do so any more. Even the lovely little green parroquets are not exempt 
 from cruel treatment. Large numbers are captured in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Chilaw, and crammed into mat bags, the mouth of 
 which is tied up, and these are carried, slung from the ends of a 
 stick, all the way to Colombo, where the survivors find a ready 
 market. 
 
 Fat pigs are thus fastened to a stick, carried between two men, 
 the cord by which their poor legs are tied cutting deep into the flesh, 
 and causing such pain that the wretched pig sometimes dies ere 
 reaching his destination. The system of branding cattle by burning 
 elaborate patterns all over them (to the destruction of the hide) is 
 justified by the plea that doing so prevents rheumatism. Whether it 
 does so or not, it assuredly causes the poor beast excruciating agony.
 
 NATIVE POLICE 495 
 
 Worst of all is the barbarity, formerly commonly practised in the 
 open market, and not yet wholly put down, of selling large live turtles 
 piecemeal, each purchaser pointing out the exact slice he desired, 
 while the wretched fellow-creature lay writhing and gasping in agony 
 for hours, till the last comer came to claim the heart and head, the 
 latter being the only vital part ; for, wonderful to tell, turtles con- 
 tinue to live and suffer after the heart has been cut out. 
 
 The commonest form in which cruelty is now apparent is in 
 over-driving wretched worn-out horses, which are too often brutally 
 beaten to make them drag weights far beyond their strength. 
 
 In 1862 a law was enacted for the protection of domestic 
 animals, elephants, and turtles, but it does not appear to have been 
 strictly enforced till about ten years ago. In 1881, however, the 
 police were exhorted to greater diligence in this matter, with such 
 excellent effect, that since that date there have been upwards of 
 3,000 convictions under this head. Moreover, a strong Society for 
 the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has now been formed, which 
 it is hoped will prove a valuable auxiliary to the police. In the first 
 six months of 1891 it secured convictions of cruelty against 229 
 persons in Colombo alone. 
 
 In addition to the regular duties of the police, a severe strain of 
 work occasionally arises from external causes. Such was the famine 
 in Southern India in 1877, from which time till 1880 thousands of 
 I)Oor starved creatures found their way to Ceylon, hoping to obtain 
 employment on the estates, but who from weakness and illness were 
 totally unable to work. 
 
 These helpless creatures, men, women, and children, reduced by 
 starvation to mere apathy, were collected from the roadsides. 
 Hundreds were found dead or dying, and received decent burial. 
 The survivors were carried to temporary hospitals, where they were 
 cared for and fed till they were able to work or travel, when they 
 were helped on their journey, the naked being furnished with needful 
 clothing, and free passages to India provided for such as longed to 
 return to their own homes. So cheaply was this managed, that the 
 average cost of the journey for each coolie was under two rupees. 
 Food for the voyage was also provided, and a small sum to keep 
 them from starvation on their journey from the coast to their own 
 village. 
 
 A very onerous ' occasional duty ' is the care of the pearl-fishery, 
 as may well be imagined, were it only in guarding the sanitation of
 
 496 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 the huge camp of 10,000 persons on the arid sea-beach, to which 
 are daily brought milhons of oysters to putrefy in the burning sun. 
 The presence of about sixty police is required for about eighty days, 
 during which they have charge of everything. They must strictly 
 guard the only available drinking-water ; they are responsible for the 
 orderly and punctual start of all the boats, numbering about two 
 hundred, and for seeing that each is escorted by a member of the 
 civil boatguard, who must never sail twice with the same tindal and 
 crew. 'J'he boats start at midnight and return the following after- 
 noon, when the oysters are carried ashore in baskets, and the 
 European police have to keep close watch during the unloading, and 
 then, in all weather, to wade out and search the boats to see that no 
 oysters have been secreted. They must also ceaselessly guard the 
 enclosure within which the precious shells are stored, for when an 
 uncomfortable oyster gapes, and reveals a tempting pearl, there are 
 plenty of eager coolies ready to snatch it up and swallow it, or, if it 
 is small enough, they might conceal it under a long finger-nail. 
 But so well do the police guard the treasure, that there is no reason 
 to believe that either the pearls or the large sums of money brought 
 for their purchase are ever stolen. 
 
 Having discoursed at such length on the police and their mani- 
 fold duties, I may add that Ceylon has now also a very efficient 
 volunteer regiment — the Ceylon Light Infantry Corps, which in 
 1885 numbered 930, including officers. Like the police, this force 
 is composed of representatives of all the nationalities on the Lsle, 
 namely, 200 British-born, 454 Eurasians, 86 Malays, 53 Tamils, 107 
 Singhalese, and $t, others. The headquarters of the force are at 
 Colombo, but companies are stationed at Kandy, Badulla, and 
 Kuruncgalla.' 
 
 Long may it be ere they are called out to defend the beautiful 
 Isle against foreign foes ! 
 
 1 Since the retirement of Sir G. W. R. Campbell from public service, the police 
 force in each province has been placed under the direction of the Government Agent , 
 who is held responsible for the suppression of crime and for the maintenance of order. 
 Under these circumstances, there is room for hope that there vill henceforth be less 
 zeal in promoting a more extensive sale of arrack.
 
 497 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 
 
 Kuruncgalld — Monastery of Lanka Tileka— On Allegalla Peak— A footprint — 
 Gangarowa — In the pLmting districts — The Wilderness of the Peak in 1849 and 
 now — Lack of fuel — King Coffee versus King Tea — Insect foes — Cacao — A planter's 
 cares— Sick coolies — Names of estates. 
 
 Among the various cities which in ancient and mediaeval ages suc- 
 cessively ranked as the capital of the Isle are Kurunegalla, anciently 
 called Hastisailapura, and Gampola, formerly called Ganga-sri-pura, 
 'the sacred city beside the river.' The former, which is fifty-eight miles 
 from Colombo, was the royal residence and that of the precious 
 Tooth from a.d. 13 19 to a.d. 1347, when Gampola had its turn. 
 
 Taking the train from Colombo to Polgahawella station a crowded 
 native coach carried me thence to Kurunegalla, ' the beetle rock,' 
 which is so named from a huge almost bare mass of reddish gneiss 
 rock, shaped like a gigantic beetle. The country hereabouts is dotted 
 with these enormous red rounded rocks, one of which bears some 
 resemblance to a kneeling elephant, and is hence called Aetagalla, 
 ' the rock of the tusk elephant.' It is a goodly mass, three miles in 
 length, and towers to a height of 600 feet above the plain and 1,096 
 above the sea. The pretty little town and lake lie at the base of the 
 great rock, which is of just the same character as that at Dambool 
 and others which we had seen on the way to Anuradhapura. Here 
 the zoological suggestions include an ' Eel Rock ' and a ' Tortoise 
 Rock.' 
 
 The country from which rise these Cyclopean boulders of red 
 rock is a level expanse of fertile rice-land, interspersed with palms and 
 all the vegetation of the hottest districts ; for hot it is in truth as is 
 evident from the great tree-cactuses which flourish in the crevices of 
 the rock. 
 
 An important industry of this district is plumbago-mining, or 
 rather pit-digging, as it has hitherto been carried on somewhat super- 
 ficially by native merchants. Hundreds of men are, however, em- 
 ployed, and thousands of tons are annually brought hence to 
 Colombo. 
 
 The Government Agent's house, in which I was hospitably enter- 
 tained—a pleasant, red-tiled bungalow, with wide, white-pillared 
 
 K K
 
 498 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 verandah — occupies the site of the Mahgawa, the ancient palace of 
 the kings of Kandy, as is attested by suggestive sculptured stones and 
 fragments of pillars, a favourite resting-place for peacocks of splendid 
 plumage. 
 
 But more striking than these are the majestic trees which cover 
 the ground as in a magnificent park, their huge stems supported by 
 wide-spreading roots, which cover the ground for a very wide radius, 
 forming buttresses like low walls. Some of these are so deep that a 
 man standing near the base of the tree can only just rest his arm on 
 one of the roots. The most remarkable of these are the Kon and 
 Labu trees ; there are also great india-rubber trees, whose roots, 
 though not forming such high walls, are equally remarkable and 
 labyrinthine. 
 
 The town is little more than a village, with native bazaar and neat 
 bungalows, each in a pleasant garden, inhabited chiefly by Burghers 
 of Dutch and Portuguese extraction. Steep paths and rock-hewn 
 steps lead to the summit of the rock, near which is a level space be- 
 tween two shoulders of rock — a green oasis of cocoa-palms and other 
 fruit-trees, among which stands a large dagoba containing a model of 
 the holy footprint on Adam's Peak (the Peak itself, about forty miles 
 distant, being visible from this point). Pilgrims come here from all 
 parts of the island, partly to visit some ruins on the extreme summit, 
 which are those of a temple wherein Buddha's venerated tooth was 
 stored during four reigns, after it had been brought here from 
 PoUanarua in a.d. 1319. 
 
 Of course, the view from this isolated height is very extensive 
 and very fine, but the heat, radiating from the sun-scorched rocks, was 
 well-nigh unbearable, and suggestive of sunstroke, which, however, 
 strange to say, is of very rare occurrence in Ceylon. I was glad to 
 descend to the cool shade of the great trees, and to drive at sunset 
 beside the still lake and its lilies. We went to call on the Moodliar, 
 to see a bright yellow paroquet, which is quite unique. It was 
 captured in a flock of the usual bright emerald-green ones, which 
 abound here, as elsewhere, throughout the low country. 
 
 A few days later found me at Gampola, which for a little season 
 succeeded Kurunegalla as capital of Ceylon. It is a very pretty 
 place, and I have happy memories of pleasant evenings of peaceful 
 boating on the lovely bamboo-fringed river \ but on this occasion I 
 only halted here on my way with friends to visit the very interesting 
 ancient Buddhist temple of Lanka Tileka, which was erected by King
 
 IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 499 
 
 Bhuwaneka-Bahu IV. in a.d. 1344. In Ceylon, a temple which has 
 only stood for five centuries is comparatively modern, but this one is 
 at least old enough to be exceedingly picturesque, with walls, partly 
 red, partly white, several stories high, and high-pitched roofs with 
 dull-red tiles. 
 
 It is most beautifully situated on the crown of a great mass of red 
 rock, which rises in the centre of a rock basin, like an inverted cup 
 standing in a bowl. I own the simile is not romantic, but it just 
 describes how the grand rock rises from the deep circular valley, 
 all devoted to rice-fields, which at the time of my visit were flooded, 
 like innumerable blue curving lakes, separated by their embank- 
 ments. 
 
 With the exception of the bare summit, on which the monastery 
 stands so conspicuously, the whole basin is densely clothed with the 
 most luxuriant tropical vegetation that can be conceived. From a 
 dense undergrowth of huge plantain and banana-leaves tower clusters 
 of tall areca, kitool, cocoa, and various other palms, with here and 
 there a magnificent talipat-palm rearing its stately head far above its 
 fellows, or else a dark bread-fruit or jak tree. (The kitool is the 
 palm with fronds like gigantic maidenhair fern.) In short, all 
 manner of fruit- and flower-bearing trees flourish in perfection in this 
 sheltered valley. 
 
 We drove as far as wheels could travel, and there bearers, with a 
 wicker arm-chair securely attached to bamboos, were in readiness to 
 carry me the rest of the way. The Government Agent had kindly 
 sent instructions to the Ratamahatmeya, the great local authority, 
 who, with permission of the chief priest, had prepared for us the 
 Bana Madoowa, or preaching-hall, which stands a short distance below 
 the temple. Here we found two comfortable bedrooms and dining- 
 room hung with calico, and otherwise ready for us. Strange to say, 
 only one-fifth of this temple is in the hands of the Buddhists. The 
 other four parts are dcivali or Hindoo, to which, we were told, there 
 was ' no admittance,' and that even the Buddhist priests might not or 
 would not enter. 
 
 I regretted this the less, as the exterior is so picturesque that I 
 gladly devoted all my time to secure a large sketch of the whole 
 scene from across the valley, in presence of a crowd of Singhalese 
 women and children, who, however, fled at every heavy rain-shower. 
 The leeches were not so easily routed, and were most persistent in 
 their attentions ; but one cannot have such glorious vegetation with- 
 
 K K 2
 
 500 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 out some drawbacks, and the loveliness of the clear moonlight fully 
 compensated for the tearful day. 
 
 One of the temple buildings is edged with extremely effective 
 hanging tiles edging the upper roof. Each forms a right angle, the 
 ornamental front being about fifteen inches in length, decorated with 
 a flower scroll and imaginary lion. Some of these had fallen (for the 
 place was much neglected), and, with the consent of the priest, I 
 carried one back to Britain, thinking that someone would be glad of 
 the design as a decorative touch for a school or fancy dairy ; but it 
 only found a welcome in a museum, I think at Inverness. 
 
 Returning by rail from (iampola to Kaduganawa station, I was 
 there met by very kind friends, who had brought a chair fastened to 
 bamboos, and a party of luggage-coolies to carry me and my goods to 
 their delightful bungalow (Oolanakanda), perched far up the steep 
 face of Allegalla Peak. The many pleasant days which on several 
 occasions I spent in that sweet home, with its music and flowers and 
 sunny faces, are among my happiest memories of Ceylon. I only 
 wish it were possible for words to convey something of the charm of 
 such surroundings, of majestic crags, clear streams, and fruit-bearing 
 trees, with varied cultivation, chiefly coffee, on the most impossible- 
 looking ground — so steep and rocky ; and all this at such a height 
 that, looking up from the railway far below, one could only imagine 
 an eagle's eerie perched at such a height. 
 
 Of course the outlook thence was a dream of delight, whether on 
 clear days, when each field in the great cultivated plain well-nigh two 
 thousand feet below us, and each farthest mountain peak, were fault- 
 lessly defined ; or when, as occasionally in the early mornings, the whole 
 valley was hidden by fleecy clouds of rolling mist, like a vast sea, 
 dotted with dark wooded isles, which are the summits of hills. So 
 steep was the hill-face, that it seemed as though we could almost 
 have thrown pebbles from those cool heights to alight in the tropics 
 only a trifle above the sea-level. 
 
 One day we climbed to the very summit of the Peak (3,394 feet 
 above the sea), there to inspect a large artificial hollow in the rock in 
 imitation of Buddha's footprint on Adam's Peak. This one is well 
 defined, and makes no pretension to being genuine. It is simply 
 representative, and worshippers who cannot make pilgrimage to the 
 true Sri Pada climb up here, to make their simple offerings, while 
 looking towards Adam's Peak, which rises sharp and clear on the 
 horizon.
 
 y. $> 
 
 o ^
 
 IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 501 
 
 At that high level even unsettled weather was a positive gain, for 
 the radiant sunshine alternating with down-pours of rain produced 
 endlessly varied cloud and storm effects, and certain sunsets remain 
 stamped on my memory, when the uplifting of heavy curtains of 
 purple cloud revealed dreamy glimpses of blue-green sky, and then 
 gleams of fiery gold and lurid red shed an unearthly light on clouds 
 and mountains. 
 
 Before each rain-storm there was a strange oppressive stillness, 
 followed by an awakening breeze, with stormy gusts sweeping up 
 chilling mists, which preceded the heavy rain. A few moments later 
 and down it poured in sheets, transforming dry paths into beds of 
 rushing torrents, and swelling tiny rivulets to impassable floods. 
 
 One day I was sitting alone under the shelter of some great 
 masses of rock fallen from the crag overhead, and being absorbed in 
 my sketching, took no heed of a terrific thunderstorm which broke 
 right overhead, followed by pitiless rain. The friendly rocks sheltered 
 me so efi'ectually, that I purposed remaining in sanctuary till the 
 storm was over, when suddenly, down came a torrent from the hill 
 above, pouring right through my nest. 
 
 In the sudden scramble to save my various possessions, I laid my 
 paint-box on a high ledge and clambered back to rescue my picture 
 and its waterproof cover. By the time I got out of this trap, the 
 water was up to my knees, and all the way back the path was crossed 
 by countless extempore streams, all above my ankles. It was a 
 tiring walk, and I was glad to reach the friendly bungalow once more. 
 
 But imagine my dismay on finding that, in the hurry of flight, 
 I had left the precious paint-box on the rocky ledge, whence in all 
 probability it had been washed away by the flood ! Such a loss 
 would have been utterly irreparable ; so there was nothing for it but 
 to divest myself of all unnecessary raiment, and retrace my steps as 
 ([uickly as possible, in the hope of retrieving this dear companion of 
 my wanderings. To my inexpressible delight I found it high and 
 dry, the spate having passed just below it, so I returned in triumph. 
 
 By the time these mountain torrents have reached the railway 
 level far below, they have gathered such volume and such impetus, 
 that a sudden thunderstorm sometimes renders the line impassable, 
 owing to the rush of waters across it, or falling in muddy cascades 
 right on to it. Trains occasionally receive shower-baths by no means 
 in the programme, and the rice-fields in the valley are all suddenly 
 transformed to lakes.
 
 IQl Tiro HArPY YEARS IX CEYI.OX 
 
 This was my first experience of a planter's home, one of many in 
 all parts of the Isle, differing in many respects, according to situation, 
 and consequent cultivation, but all alike in the warm-hearted cordial 
 hospitality which made each successive visit so pleasant. 
 
 Another delightful home in which I found repeated welcome was 
 Oangarowa, a most lovely estate on the banks of the beautiful 
 Mahavelli River, opposite the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens. 
 
 This was the first plantation started by Sir Edward Barnes in 
 1825, when he had opened up the country by making the road to 
 Kandy. All planting being then experimental, a little of everything 
 was tried, so that instead of the monotony of a large estate all devoted 
 to one product, Gangarowa had the charm of infinite variety. Sad 
 experience has now taught most planters the wisdom of not carrying 
 all their eggs in one basket ; but when I was in Ceylon, King Coffee 
 reigned supreme, and in many districts literally nothing else was 
 cultivated over an area of many miles. In every direction, as far as 
 the eye could reach, up hill and down dale, it was all coffee, coffee, 
 coffee. 
 
 Of course, such uniformity was singularly unattractive, and as I 
 passed from one great coffee district to another in various parts of 
 ] )imbula, Dickoya, Maskeliya, Kalibooka, The Knuckles, Deltottc, &c., 
 I confess to having often longed for some of the vanished glories 
 of the forests of which I had heard so much from earlier settlers 
 on the Isle, who had told me how between the clearings there 
 remained hundreds of exc^uisite little nooks with streams trickling 
 under tree-ferns, green dragonflies skimming over quiet pools and 
 glorious forest-trees overhead ; instead of which I found every 
 ravine denuded, and the totally unshaded streams avenging them- 
 selves by washing as much soil as possible from the roots of the 
 nearest coffee-trees. 
 
 I'ut if those earlier settlers saw Ceylon in greater beauty than do 
 those of the present generation, they also had to face very much 
 harder conditions of life, living perhaps sixteen miles or more from 
 even a cart-road, and feeding on salt beef and biscuit— never by any 
 chance tasting milk, bread, or potatoes. 
 
 Now few need have such rough fare, and many of the married 
 men have the cosiest of houses, enlivened by music and singing, 
 new bocks and magazines, happy healthy children, excellent food, 
 pleasant intercourse with neighbours — in short, all that can tend to 
 make the wheels of life glide smoothly.
 
 IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 503 
 
 In truth, it is difficult to realise that it is less than half a century 
 since the whole Central Province, right up to the very summit of the 
 highest mountains, was clothed with dense impenetrable forests, so 
 rapidly have they disappeared before the diligent and ruthless hands 
 of indefatigable planters. Indeed, so precious has every acre be- 
 come, that comparatively few men even allow themselves a garden 
 round their own bungalows, though with the smallest care such a 
 garden becomes a tiny paradise, where orange, lime, and other fruit- 
 bearing trees, gardenias and scarlet lilies, and all manner of fragrant 
 and gorgeous blossoms grow in endless profusion. 
 
 A few such gardens we did see, and therein lingered with delight, 
 beneath the cool shadow of large orange-trees, laden with blossom 
 and ripe fruit, on which we feasted with all the more enjoyment after 
 toiling for hours through dreary clearings. As a rule, however, such 
 an oasis is rarely to be met with ; and I grieve to say that even 
 where some tasteful planters of the last generation had bordered 
 their roads with hedges of delicious roses, a joy to all passers-by, 
 new owners, in their thirst for gold, uprooted the blessed flowers in 
 order to gain room for one more row of nasty little bushes (as I 
 delighted in calling the young coffee-trees, to aggravate my friends of 
 the planting community). 
 
 Of course, in a wholesale clearing, no precious morsel of forest 
 cfliild be reserved ; so the man who craved for one shady tree to 
 overshadow his house must plant it himself and wait till it grew, 
 otherwise he could hope for nothing more imposing than his ov/n 
 coffee shrubs, whose allotted height is 3 feet or 3 feet 6 inches, 
 according to their position ; beyond this, the British planter does 
 not suffer his bushes to grow, though round the native houses they 
 attain to the size of Portugal laurels in this country, and notwith- 
 standing this liberty bear a luxuriant crop of scarlet berries. 
 
 So the general effect of a district which has recently been taken 
 into cultivation is singularly hideous. Far as the eye can reach, 
 range beyond range of hills all show the same desolate expanse of 
 blackened tree-trunks, for the most part felled, but a certain number 
 still upright ; a weird and dreary scene, as you would think had you 
 to toil up and down these steep hills in the burning sun, thinking, 
 oh ! how regretfully, of the cool green forest shade, which has been 
 so ruthlessly destroyed. 
 
 Sometimes this contrast was brought very vividly before us when 
 the path along which we were to travel formed a boundary line
 
 504 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 between the reclaimed and unreclaimed land — the one so dismal, 
 \vith scorching sun beating in all its fierceness on the black prostrate 
 trunks, tossed in wild confusion among the rocks, the other fresh and 
 pleasant to the eye, with an undergrowth of exquisite tree-ferns and 
 a thousand other forms of beauty growing in rank luxuriance, and 
 telling of cool hidden streamlets that trickle beneath the shade of 
 great trees, many of them matted with brilliant-flowering creepers, 
 or studded with tufts of orchids — flowers of the mist. 
 
 Very soon the glory of the primeval forests will be altogether a 
 tale of the past so far as the hill districts are concerned, for a few 
 years hence, the tree-ferns and scarlet rhododendrons, and all such 
 useless jungle loveliness, will have utterly vanished. Nature is very 
 forgiving, however ; for wherever a planter is found so careless as to 
 suffer an encroaching weed (and I am bound to confess such 
 graceful slovenliness is rare), she clothes the steep banks and 
 cuttings along the road with a wilderness of dainty ferns of every 
 sort, and the richest tangle of a magnified edition of our stag's-horn 
 moss, which grows in wildest luxuriance. 
 
 After all, even while bewailing the destruction of beautiful 
 forests, we were driven to confess that, but for the labours of the 
 planters, the glories of the interior must have remained to us sealed 
 books. As it was, we travelled hither and thither, and explored 
 scenes which but a few years ago would have been to us simply un- 
 attainable. 
 
 When in 1840 Lieutenant Skinner ascended Adam's Peak, and 
 looking down from that high summit on range beyond range all 
 densely clothed with pathless forest, totally impenetrable save where 
 elephants had cleared roads for themselves, he foretold that this 
 region was destined ere long to become the garden of Ceylon — a 
 garden of European as well as tropical productions, peopled with 
 European as well as Asiatic faces— he was jeered at for his 
 prediction. 
 
 Yet he maintained his conviction ; for 'who,' he said, 'can enjoy 
 this perfect climate — thermometer at 68° — without feeling that it 
 would be conferring a blessing on humanity, by clearing this track- 
 less wilderness of from 200,000 to 300,000 acres of forest, to be the 
 means of removing some 20,000 of the panting, half-famished 
 creatures from the burning sandy plains of Southern India to such 
 comparative paradise, and also benefiting our own Singhalese people 
 inhabiting the margin of this wilderness, now compelled to hide in
 
 IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 505 
 
 places scarcely accessible to man, in order to render their dwellings 
 inaccessible to elephants, and many of them unable to cultivate a 
 grain of paddy or to procure a morsel of salt ? ' 
 
 Major Skinner lived long enough to see the ancient inhabitants 
 of the Isle, the immigrant labourers from the coast of Coromandel, 
 and European planters all working peacefully side by side on 
 reclaimed lands. But, sad to say, the opening up of the country and 
 the influx of foreign gold did not prove unmixed advantages. In 
 1849 Major Skinner had to report that 'the most profligate of the 
 low-country Singhalese had flocked from the maritime provinces 
 into the interior, and spread their contaminating influences far 
 and wide over a previously sober, orderly, honest race. Robberies 
 and bloodshed had become familiar to the Kandyan in districts 
 where, a few years before, any amount of property would have been 
 perfectly safe in the open air.' 
 
 Moreover, he had to report that the vice of intemperance had 
 become an enormous evil, and one which was rapidly gaining 
 ground. The system of the Government sale of arrack-farms was 
 already in full force, and yielding a revenue of about ^60,000 a 
 year. 
 
 ' It is, of course,' he says, ' the object of the renter to sublet as 
 many of these taverns as possible ; they are established in almost 
 every village of any size throughout the interior, often to the great 
 annoyance of the inhabitants, and in opposition to the headmen. 
 To give the people a taste for the use of spirits, it is often, at first, 
 necessary to distribute it gratuitously, the tavern-keepers well 
 knowing that, with the use, the abuse follows as a certainty. I have 
 known districts in which, some years ago, not one in a hundred could 
 be induced to taste spirits, where drunkenness now prevails to such 
 an extent that villagers have been known to pawn their crops upon 
 the ground to tavern-keepers for arrack.' 
 
 Forty years have elapsed since those lines were penned, and of 
 those great forests, then known as 'The Wilderness of the Peak,' 
 scarcely a vestige remains, fully 300,000 acres being now under 
 cultivation, traversed by carriage-roads, and dotted over with 
 P^uropean homes and such important villages as Maskeliya, Dickoya, 
 St Clair, Craigie-Lea, &c. 
 
 So fully has the prediction being carried out, that Nanuoya, the 
 present railway terminus, which twenty years ago lay in the heart of 
 untouched jungle, is now a centre of such busy life that last year it
 
 5o6 riVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 received and despatched no less than 21,090 telegrams on railway 
 business, without counting private messages ; ' while a daily average 
 of seventy goods waggons, laden with very varied products, were 
 despatched thence, and as many more daily arrived from the low 
 country. 
 
 Now that the steed has been stolen, and vast tracts totally de- 
 nuded of forest, Government has wisely interfered to preserve some 
 fragments in the remaining districts, and also by reserving a narrow 
 belt of timber on the banks of streams and around their source; also 
 by prohibiting the clearing of mountain ridges. But so ruthless and 
 utterly improvident has been the wholesale destruction of the forests, 
 that now, whatever timber is necessary for estate purposes, such as 
 building or any form of carpentering, must be purchased, and planters 
 in many districts have to employ coolies on purpose to fetch fire- 
 wood from long distances. 
 
 Efforts are now being made to correct past errors by planting 
 foreign trees, especially the quick-growing Australian trees, which 
 adapt themselves most readily to the soil. Amongst these are the 
 yarrah, casuarina, wattle, and other acacias. The wattle, however, 
 from the extraordinary distance to which it spreads its roots, proved 
 such an encroaching colonist, that it became necessary to eradicate 
 it totally. But the various Eucalypti, i.e.^ the Australian gums, have 
 proved true friends in need, and develop in a manner worthy of their 
 great Fatherland. On some estates at an elevation of 5,000 feet, 
 blue gums have been found to grow a foot per month in the rainy 
 season, and about six inches i)cr month for the other half of the 
 year ! So these gigantic young Australians attain a height of 
 upwards of sixty feet within five years ! 
 
 As I have said, at the time of my visit to Ceylon, King Coffee 
 held undisputed sway, and his name was on every lip. Coffee — 
 coffee— coffee — its rise and fall in the market — its snowy blossoms — 
 its promise of crop— the ravages of coffee-bug or leaf-disease, these 
 were the topics on which the changes were rung morning, noon, and 
 night — but especially at night over the pipes, which took (what 
 seemed to us, vainly courting sleep) such an interminable time to 
 smoke. For this is one disadvantage in the construction of all 
 Eastern houses that I have ever seen. They are so built that every 
 room has the benefit of all its neighbour's conversation, to say 
 
 ' At Colombo, in the same year, the railway telegrams received and despatched 
 numbered 20,955, ^'^'^ post-office telegrams 50,487.
 
 IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 507 
 
 nothing of that which goes on in the verandah outside the windows. 
 Moreover, to secure ventilation, the interior of most bungalows is 
 merely divided by partitions reaching to a certain height, and above 
 that is the tightly-stretched white canvas which checks the falling of 
 fragments from the high-peaked roof. 
 
 In the mountain districts the houses are of a somewhat British 
 type, having boarded floors, well raised above the ground as a pre- 
 caution against damp, and fireplaces in most rooms. Where the 
 carriage of brick from the low country, or even stone from the 
 mountain quarry, would be too costly, these houses are chiefly built 
 of wood trellised with bamboo, and the interstices filled with clay 
 and plastered over. 
 
 x\las ! very soon after the days of which I speak, King Coffee 
 fell from his throne ; the grievous leaf-disease appeared in all its 
 virulence, and tens of thousands of acres on the most flourishing 
 estates were left desolate, clothed with withered diseased shrubs 
 scarcely fit for firewood. 
 
 This cruel disease {Heiuikia vastatrix) is a fungus which appears 
 in the form of orange-coloured spots on the leaf, which presently 
 drops off, and the shrub is sometimes left leafless and apparently 
 dead. Perhaps soon afterwards it is again covered with leaves, but 
 again the deadly fungus reappears. It was first observed in Ceylon 
 in May 1869, on a few plants in one of the eastern districts, whence 
 it attacked a few acres, then spread like wildfire over the whole coffee 
 region. It appeared simultaneously in other Eastern countries — came 
 and conquered — while grubs attacked the roots and brown Inigs 
 sapped the life-blood of the once flourishing shrubs. 
 
 Everything that ingenuity and despair could suggest was tried in 
 vain — collecting and burning the diseased leaves, high manuring^ 
 wholesale pruning. The destructive fungus held its ground, and the 
 sorely-tried planters in too many cases were literally driven to abandon 
 the lands which they could not afford to work, and to seek employ- 
 ment under new-comers, who, after the lapse of a few .sad years, 
 brought fresh supplies of gold wherewith to test new products. Tea, 
 cinchona, cacao, and various other crops were planted experimentally 
 with the result that Ceylon is now more flourishing than ever, with 
 splendidly varied products, including coffee, which in some districts 
 is now as fine and as healthy as ever ; but the reigning monarch now 
 is Tea, whose supremacy is scarcely likely ever to be disputed. 
 
 But before speaking of this new king, I will briefly glance at the
 
 5o8 TPVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 liistory of coffee in Ceylon. To begin with, it is a singular fact that 
 not only a very large proportion of all the coffee that once clothed 
 these thousand hills in Ceylon, but also the coffee plantations of 
 many other lands, are all lineally descended from one plant, which, 
 about A.D. 1690, was raised in a garden at Batavia by the Dutch 
 governor, General Van Hoornc, to whom a few seeds had been pre- 
 sented by a trader from the Arabian Gulf. 
 
 These took so kindly to the soil of Java, that coffee plantations 
 were established, and a plant was sent to the Botanic Gardens at 
 Amsterdam. Thence young plants, reared from its seeds, were for- 
 warded to Surinam, which in its turn sent a supply to various of the 
 West Indian Isles. Wherever the young plants arrived, plantations 
 were started, and meanwhile Java had sent supplies to Sumatra, 
 Celebes, Bali, the Philippines, and Ceylon. 
 
 To the latter, however, the plant had already been brought, pro- 
 bably by Arab traders, but the secret of its fragrant berries had re- 
 mained undiscovered. It was planted as an ornamental shrub about 
 the king's palace, and near the temples of Buddha, on whose altars 
 its delicate starry blossoms were laid as offerings. A beverage was 
 prepared from its leaves, which also found favour in making curry, 
 l)ut it was not till the Dutch revealed the hidden mystery, that the art 
 of roasting coffee-beans dawned upon them. 
 
 The Dutch, however, committed the blunder of making their 
 I)lantations in the low-lying, thoroughly tropical districts of Galle and 
 Negombo, both on the sea-coast. The result was highly unfavour- 
 able, and in 1739 the attempt to cultivate coffee was abandoned by the 
 foreigners, but carried on by the Singhalese, who continued growing 
 it on a small scale. 
 
 This continued till about the year 1825, when the English 
 Governor, Sir Edward J5arnes, having opened up the hill-country by 
 making a road to Kandy, bethought him of making an experimental 
 plantation at this height. He obtained splendid crops from the virgin 
 soil of those rich forest-lands, and so successful an example was 
 quickly followed. Free grants of Crown-land were so eagerly taken 
 up, that 5^'. per acre was charged, at which price some men abstained 
 from buying. 
 
 Forty years later, choice land in full cultivation was sold at prices 
 ranging from ^100 to ^130 per acre. 
 
 But ere then, the fortunes of coffee-planters were subject to strange 
 vicissitudes. The golden harvest reaped by those first in the field
 
 m THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 509 
 
 attracted an eager throng of speculators of every rank, all hasting to 
 secure Ceylon estates, and it has been stated that something like 
 ^5,000,000 was thus invested, when suddenly, in 1845, there came a 
 terrible financial crisis in Europe, the effects of which on prices and 
 credit shook the new industry of Ceylon to its very foundations. 
 
 Then, as a climax of evil, came the declaration of Free Trade, 
 admitting the coffee of Java and Brazil to British markets on equal 
 terms with that of Ceylon. These tidings of woe produced a panic 
 which resulted in wide- spread ruin. In the consternation of the 
 moment, estates were forced into the market and sold for a tithe or a 
 twentieth of the money that had been expended on them. One 
 estate, which three years previously had been purchased for ^15,000, 
 was sold for ^440 ; two purchased for ^10,000 apiece respectively 
 realised ^500 and jQt,So ; while for others no offer could be obtained, 
 so they were abandoned and allowed to relapse to jungle. It has 
 been estimated that probably one-tenth of the estates originally opened 
 were thus abandoned. 
 
 Yet so quickly does time bring its revenges, that twenty years 
 later the scale was reversed, and estates bought for a few hundreds 
 were sold for many thousands sterling. In the midst of this lament- 
 able crisis, the Bank of Ceylon stopped payment, losing heavily on 
 large loans advanced to planters. Its business was, however, taken 
 up by the Western Bank of India, which thereupon assumed the name 
 of the Oriental Bank Corporation. It must be noted as a singular 
 coincidence, that the career commenced under such adverse influences 
 should have ended during the late almost equally calamitous time of 
 commercial depression, in like manner rising phoenix-like from its 
 own ashes in the form of the New Oriental Bank Corporation. 
 
 By 1870 about 150,000 acres of mountain forest had been cleared 
 and replaced by coffee, of which the annual export rose to 974,333 
 cwts., representing a value not far short of ^5,000,000. That proved 
 to be the highest point ever attained in the fulfilment of the coffee- 
 planter's dream — a vision golden indeed, but, like the splendour of a 
 gorgeous sunset, it heralded the stormy change which too quickly 
 followed. A little cloud had been rising, at first scarcely deemed 
 worthy of notice, yet all too quickly it had overshadowed the whole 
 land, and the fair crops were all stricken by cruel blight. It was the 
 old story of the seven lean kine which devoured the flit fair kine of 
 previous years, for the years that followed were truly years of famine. 
 
 The destroying angel in the present instance came in the form of
 
 Sio TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 the humble fungus of which I have already spoken — the orange- 
 coloured spots on the leaves. At first it was hoped that it might 
 prove merely local and be stamped out. That hope, however, proved 
 delusive, for in an incredibly short period it overspread the whole 
 land, and was unhappily exported even to the young colony of Fiji, 
 where coffee, introduced with much care by Government, had pre- 
 viously been flourishing. To make matters worse, a green bug, as 
 thirsty as the brown bug of past years, came to feast on the life-juices 
 of the poor sick shrubs. 
 
 For some years the story of Ceylon was one cry of lamentation 
 and mourning and woe. The fair Isle seemed sick unto death, and 
 many gave up all hope of her recovery. Night seemed settling down 
 to ever-deepening darkness, a night of chill mists, in which ' poortith 
 cauld ' entered unbidden — the first guest that ever failed of a welcome 
 to the ever-hospitable homes of the Ceylon planters. Then many a 
 brave hard-working man, who had invested his whole capital, and 
 probably borrowed money besides on the estate that seemed so 
 secure, found it totally impossible to tide over the evil hour. 
 
 Where the calamity was so wide-spread as to cripple some of the 
 great mercantile firms and involve all in serious anxiety, it became a 
 hopeless matter for individuals to obtain credit, and when no money 
 was forthcoming even to pay coolies' wages, there was, in many cases, 
 no alternative but simply to abandon the land, and thousands of acres 
 were thus left to relapse into jungle, and the estate buildings were left 
 to go to ruin. 
 
 True to the axiom that misfortunes never come singly, the 
 Oriental Bank, which in the terrible crisis of 1845 had so gallantly 
 come to the rescue, now (partly owing to heavy insular losses) found 
 itself compelled to stop payment, thereby adding so seriously to the 
 general commercial complication as to threaten general bankruptcy. 
 In this very grave complication, the Governor, the Hon. Sir Arthur 
 Hamilton Gordon, took upon himself the responsibility of giving 
 Government security for all the Bank's notes circulating in the island, 
 to the value of 3,600,000 rupees— a prompt and energetic measure, 
 which restored public confidence and averted untold mischief. 
 
 Never was there a more splendid instance of the advantage of 
 acting for the best and asking leave afterwards. It was a tremendous 
 responsibility for a Colonial Governor to undertake, and there is 
 every reason to believe that had the question been referred first to 
 the Home Government it would have been vetoed. As it was, it
 
 IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 511 
 
 proved a splendid success, and saved many a house from ruin. 
 Equally successful was the establishment of Government currency 
 notes, which not only relieved the island from temporary difificulty, 
 but already yield the colonial exchequer an annual profit approaching 
 200,000 rupees. 
 
 The darkest hour is ever next the dawning, and shortly before 
 the coffee crisis had become serious, experimental tea plantations had 
 been started at various altitudes, and all with complete success, the 
 snowy blossoms of the tea shrubs — Cajiiellia theifera — forming a 
 pleasing variety on the monotony of the ever-present coffee, beautiful 
 as it was, with its sheets of fragrant blossoms or its clusters of green, 
 yellow, scarlet, and crimson cherries. Here then was a rainbow of 
 promise for the future, and such planters as were still able to raise 
 sufficient capital for another venture grasped the situation, and 
 grappled with the new industry with the semi-despairing energy of 
 men who knew it to be their last resource. 
 
 Happily, on many estates it was decided not at once to uproot 
 diseased coffee, but give it a chance of recovery, while tea shrubs 
 were planted all over the ground ; and well it is that this was done, 
 as, in many cases, on estates which had been abandoned as past hope, 
 the leafless bushes, which were apparently dead, recovered as if from 
 a trance, and putting forth fresh leaves, yielded fair crops of berries, 
 albeit struggling for existence with the too luxuriant weeds and scrub, 
 which had been allowed to grow unheeded. On estates where it has 
 been again taken into cultivation, excellent returns have been obtained, 
 notably in Uva, where on a single branch, which in September 1890 
 was cut as ' a specimen ' of the crop on the Albion estate, no less than 
 954 berries were counted. 
 
 So there is now, once more, good hope for the future of coffee, 
 and its advocates point out how scourges well-nigh as grievous as 
 leaf-disease have ravaged certain crops in divers lands, yet have 
 eventually worn themselves out. Thus in Ceylon about the year 
 1866 coffee was grievously afflicted by a black bug, which was first 
 observed in 1843 o" ^ f^^^' '>i-'shes in the district of MadulsinicT, but 
 thence spread and multiplied till it had attacked every estate, and 
 was officially recognised as a permanent pest ; yet so completely has 
 it passed away, that it now ranks as a comparatively rare visitor. 
 
 While searching for any natural cause which might account for 
 the origin of a plague so virulent and wide-spread as the leaf-disease, 
 it has been suggested that some such result very frequently follows the
 
 512 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 disturbance of Nature's system of blending innumerable varieties of 
 vegetation. 
 
 Man clears great tracts of forest or plain, and plants the whole 
 with one product, and ere long his vines develop phylloxera, his 
 potatoes are attacked by blight or Colorado-beetle, his great wheat- 
 plains are spoiled by rust. In Mysore a slimy leaf-disease attacks his 
 coffee ; in Brazil, and likewise in Dominica, great tracts of the same 
 are destroyed by burrowing grub ; and so here in like manner vast 
 districts, hitherto clothed with all manner of trees, shrubs, ferns, and 
 grasses, are suddenly stripped to be henceforth devoted to the growth 
 of one shrub, and that a shrub which requires the aid of divers 
 manures to stimulate its growth. 
 
 It is self-evident that when once the special foe of such a product 
 has discovered such unlimited feeding-ground, it is not likely to 
 abandon the country very quickly. Nevertheless, as I have shown, 
 such scourges do wear themselves out in time, and though coffee 
 can never regain its former undisputed dominion in Ceylon, its 
 cultivation is now once more taking a fair place among profitable 
 industries. 
 
 A very remarkable feature in the successive cultivation of coffee 
 and tea has been the discovery that these two plants derive their 
 sustenance from totally different elements in the soil, so that an 
 abandoned coffee-field is practically virgin soil as regards tea. The 
 latter seems warranted to flourish in all soils and at all altitudes, 
 plantations within half a dozen miles of the sea, and not 150 feet 
 above sea-level, yielding as excellent returns as those at an altitude 
 of 6,000 feet. So extraordinary is the talent of this hardy shrub for 
 adapting itself to circumstances, that, although its habit is to send 
 out lateral roots, which in some cases are as thick as a man's thumb, 
 and extend ten or twelve feet from the stem, yet if it fails thereby to 
 secure sufficient nourishment, it strikes a strong tap-root six or eight 
 feet down to the lower soil, even penetrating cabook, and securing 
 itself to the fissure of some subterranean rock, and drawing nourish- 
 ment from land never reached by the coffee, which is a surface- 
 feeder. 
 
 I have already referred ' to the amazingly rapid extension of the 
 tea industry in Ceylon, so need not now recur to that subject. Of 
 course tea may develop a special disease, but as yet there has been no 
 symptom of such a thing. Wherever it has been grown in other 
 
 1 See p. 5.
 
 IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 513 
 
 countries, it has proved remarkably hardy and free from disease. 
 Certainly bhghts of green-fly and red-spiders have given some trouble 
 on Indian estates, but so they do in English rose-gardens. A note 
 of warning was sounded in 1884 when an insect named Hclopeltis 
 Anionii, which has proved a grave foe to tea in India and Java, and 
 is the worst enemy of the chocolate-tree, appeared in Ceylon. 
 Happily, however, it does not seem to have gained a footing in the 
 Isle. 
 
 A more dangerous enemy is the ever-present, ever-active white 
 ant, which was never known to attack living coffee-bushes, but shows 
 a great liking for flourishing young tea-trees, and has done grave 
 damage in the Ratnapura district, and in some other places even 
 2,500 feet above the sea-level 
 
 In Southern India its chief foe is the porcupine, which has at 
 least the merit of size (better than battling with myriads of scarcely 
 visible foes). It goes about the tea-fields at night, cutting right 
 through the roots, and grubbing up the bushes apparently out of 
 sheer venom, as it does not seem to eat even the roots. But its love 
 of potatoes gives the Neilgherry planter a chance ; he prepares little 
 enclosed patches of potatoes guarded with spring-guns, and thus dis- 
 poses of a good many of these troublesome diggers, whose flesh is as 
 highly acceptable to his coolies as is that of coffee-rats fried in cocoa- 
 nut oil to the coolies of Ceylon, where swarms of the said rats some- 
 times attack a plantation and nibble off branches to get at the 
 cherries. 
 
 Another foe which they turn to equally good account is the pig- 
 rat or bandicoot, which grows to nearly two feet in length. It is 
 a clean feeder, with flesh resembling pork, and makes a much- 
 appreciated curry. In some districts— i?.^., Hantane — serious damage 
 to coffee is due to wild pigs, which grub up the bushes, and involve 
 constant watching. These also are foes worth the trouble of slaying. 
 The merry, frolicsome, little grey squirrel, with its handsome dark 
 stripes and large bushy tail, is not often molested, although rather a 
 serious poacher, as he delights in the ripe red cherries, or rather in 
 the beans which he finds within them. 
 
 Amongst other strong points in favour of tea versus coffee, one is 
 that, whereas the harvesting of the latter is entirely dependent on a few 
 days of fine weather at certain seasons, that of tea goes on, more or 
 less, all the year round, the warm steamy climate of Ceylon, produced 
 by floods of sunshine alternating with heavy rain, being eminently 
 
 L L
 
 514 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 suited for the production of luxuriant foliage. The tree is no sooner 
 stripped of its leaves, than it puts forth young shoots in place of those 
 gathered, which are immediately dried artificially, by processes so 
 purely mechanical, that no handling is allowed ; all is done auto- 
 matically, thus securing the most rigorous cleanliness — a very 
 marked feature in favour of Ceylon lea versus that of China. 
 
 An initial expense in the change from coffee to tea cultivation 
 has been owing to the fact that, whereas coffee is transported to 
 Colombo, there to undergo its various stages of preparation for the 
 market, tea must all be prepared on the estates, involving new 
 buildings and special machinery. Moreover, the grave error of the 
 wholesale clearing of forests is thereby brought vividly home to the 
 planters, who are now compelled to buy fuel at a high cost, not only 
 for culinary purposes, but for tea-drying. 
 
 To supply this need, Eucalypti, blue gum, and many Australian 
 trees have, as we have seen, been successfully planted on hills and 
 patenas. But though the eucalyptus rapidly shoots up to a very 
 great height, it has in many cases been killed by the ravages of a 
 minute insect, myriads of which attack the tree and bore right through 
 its stem. 
 
 Prominent among the industries which have only begun to develop 
 since the temporary failure of coffee is the culture of the beautiful 
 cacao or chocolate tree {Theobroma Cacao, ' the food of the gods '), 
 which had long been grown in Ceylon as an ornamental shrub, with- 
 out a thought of its commercial value. And very ornamental it is, 
 forming a very much more attractive plantation than either closely 
 pruned tea or coffee shrubs. In four years it grows to a height of 
 about sixteen feet, with luxuriant masses of large, handsome leaves, 
 casting a dark cool shade. 
 
 It bears small pink and white blossoms, which develop into 
 magnificent rough oblong pods as large as a man's two hands. These, 
 as they ripen, assume very varied and rich colours, the Caraccas 
 cacao-pods changing from green to white and golden-yellow ; that 
 imported from Trinidad becoming crimson and maroon and purple. 
 When open, they reveal a bed of sticky pulp, much appreciated by 
 native children, wherein lie embedded from twenty to thirty of the 
 precious beans or 'nibs,' which, when roasted and mixed with sugar, 
 vanilla, and other things, form the various preparations in which this 
 ' food of the gods ' (as Linnaeus so happily named it) is familiar to 
 us.
 
 IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 515 
 
 To obtain tliese, however, the beans must first travel to Europe, 
 amateur efforts at producing home-made cacao in Ceylonese homes 
 having proved eminently unsatisfactory, whereas tea prepared on the 
 estates is so perfect, that tea-drinking has been largely developed. 
 
 Of course, there was much to learn regarding the conditions of 
 successful cacao cultivation — the exact amount of shade required ^ 
 and protection from wind, the necessity for good soil and sufficient 
 rainfall — all these had to be learnt by experience, and the young 
 industry received a severe shock in 1885 owing to the prolonged 
 drought, which favoured the ravages of an insect pest, causing the 
 death of many young trees and inducing some planters to abandon 
 this culture. This, however, proved but a temporary check, as Ceylon 
 cacao now commands a high price in European markets. 
 
 Of all the new products, none gave such rapid and valuable returns 
 at the time of the most grievous depression as cinchona, the bark of 
 which yields the quinine so precious as a tonic and preventive of 
 fever, as also in counteracting the craving for opium and other 
 stimulants. Some seeds imported from South America had been 
 sown in the Government garden at Hackgalla in 1861, and chemical 
 analysis had proved the island-grovm produce to be of such excellent 
 quality — fully equal to that sold by English and French chemists at 
 a guinea and thirty francs per ounce — that its cultivation had been 
 encouraged by the offer of free gifts of young plants ; but so entirely 
 were the whole community under the dominion of King Coffee, that 
 even when a planter of an experimental turn of mind converted a 
 corner of his estate into a cinchona plantation, the next proprietor 
 rooted it out, grudging every inch that was not devoted to coffee. 
 
 But when that failed, men bethought them of the hitherto 
 neglected cinchona, the value of which in their eyes was perhaps 
 further enhanced by the fact that the young plants were no longer 
 offered at the Government nurseries as a free gift, but at the rate of 
 five rupees per thousand. Within six years about four million young 
 plants were thus disposed of, and plantations were formed throughout 
 the hill-country on all manner of soil and at all possible altitudes, 
 both above and l)clow the coffee zone. 
 
 1 These problems have to be puzzled out with regard to each separate product. 
 For instance, w ith regard to coffee, it is found that on elevations of from 2,000 to 6, coo 
 feet above the sea no shade is required, as the clouds suffice. But at lower levels 
 moderate shade is found advantageous, especially if afforded by remunerative trees, 
 such as cacao-shrubs, which in their turn can be shaded by tall cocoa-palms. 
 
 Li 2
 
 5i6 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 The methods of cuUivation and of obtaining the largest quantity 
 of bark without kilHng the poor trees in the process of partial flaying, 
 were so very experimental, that in some cases this cinchona-planting 
 proved a failure.' It is a i)eculiarly uncertain crop to raise, as there 
 is no security that good plants will grow from even the best seed taken 
 from the best plants. But the plantations on suitable soil and 
 judiciously treated yielded very large returns, as may be inferred from 
 the rapid development of the export of cinchona bark which in 1872 
 amounted only to 11,547 lbs., but by 1887 had reached well-nigh 
 15,000,000 lbs. 
 
 These figures, however, do not represent unalloyed profit. For, 
 strange to say, whereas in past years cinchona-trees three years of age 
 have been known to yield upwards of ten per cent, of sulphate of 
 quinine, the average produce now shipped does not exceed two per 
 cent. This deterioration of quality, combined with the enormously 
 increased supply now thrown on the market, has tended very 
 seriously to reduce the commercial value of Ceylon bark, the price of 
 which has fallen so low, that except in certain specially favourable 
 localities it does not pay to collect the crop. And yet some country 
 chemists still sell quinine at a very small reduction on the old ex- 
 orbitant price. It is said that (juinine manufacturers combined against 
 the producers and the consuming public in order to keep up the price, 
 but whatever is the reason, the planters find it impossible to obtain a 
 remunerative price for bark, though thousands of fever-stricken people 
 and of Chinamen struggling to shake off the bondage of opium crave 
 quinine as their one hope of salvation.^ 
 
 ' Planters more than most men, can only learn in the hard school of experience. 
 Thus, in 1884 half a million of cinchona trees, some of which were si.xteen years of age, 
 were killed by an unusually hard frost at Ootacamund, in the Madras Province. By 
 this unexpected visitation several well-established plantations _were almost wholly 
 destroyed. 
 
 - Mr. J. Ferguson, of the Ceylon Ol'sover, writes to the Secretary of the Society 
 for the Suppression of the Opium Trade showing how much opium-eating (laudanum 
 and morphia, or pure opium) may be counteracted by a liberal use of quinine. It is 
 known to be practised to a very serious extent in the P'en districts of Cambridge and 
 Lincolnshire, about Gravesend on the Thames, and in other malarial districts, as well 
 as by underfed men and women in unhealthy houses in great cities. 
 
 He quotes Mr. Archibald Colquhoun, in his 'Journey Across Chryse,' to show how- 
 many Chinamen, victims to this curse, realise the efficacy of quinine in superseding the 
 need of opium and possibly curing the craving for it ; and how both mandarins and 
 people craved for a pinch, as the best gift he could bestow on them. He shows how 
 beneficiiil this tonic would also be to horses and cattle in malarial regions, if only it
 
 IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS %\^ 
 
 When young trees have been recently stripped or shaved, a careful 
 planter supplies them with an artificial garment of dried grass or old 
 newspaper ! That any plant should tolerate such a substitute for 
 lungs seems incredible ; nevertheless these seem to flourish under 
 this treatment, even when repeated in successive years. Certainly 
 the cinchona is a most forgiving shrub. 
 
 Besides these, -which are of course the leading industries, many 
 smaller cultivations are being tried experimentally, such as india- 
 rubber, cardamoms, croton-oil seed, aloes, on account of their fibre, 
 &c. 
 
 It is no life of idleness which awaits a young planter. Early and 
 late he must be at his post, in foul weather and in fine ; sometimes 
 for weeks together living in a continual state of soak, with rain 
 pouring as it can only do in the tropics, finding out all the weak 
 places in the roof, and producing such general damp that nothing is 
 dry, and boots and clothes are all covered with fungus. Up and 
 down the steep mountain-side he must follow his coolies, often 
 battling with fierce wind, scrambling over and under great fallen 
 trees and rocks and charred branches, for wherever a little bush can 
 find a crevice, there he must go to see that it has been duly tended. 
 For it is not enough to plant a bush and leave it to take its chance ; 
 what with manuring and handling, pruning and picking, there is 
 always something to be done. In the case of coffee, however, the 
 great mass of work comes on periodically in crop-time, when for 
 several consecutive weeks the press and hurry continue, and Sunday 
 and week-day alike know no rest. 
 
 Nor will the substitution of tea culture for that of coffee lighten 
 the planter's work ; on the contrary, the former involves more 
 constant care. Coffee crops were only gathered at definite seasons, 
 and work on the plantation, in the store, and in the pulping house 
 was all cut and dry, the rush of work being compressed into two or 
 three months. It was simple work, requiring less special training 
 and care than tea cultivation. 
 
 Tea picking goes on all the year round, and the curing requires 
 the greatest care and nicety of manipulation, and constant European 
 supervision. The work involves long hours nearly every day of the 
 whole year, and is a great and continuous strain on both physical 
 and mental powers. 
 
 could reach the consumer tit anythin;^ approaching tlic modest price wliich would pay 
 the cultivator.
 
 5iS TIVO HAPPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 One of the sorest difficulties with which the planter has cease- 
 lessly to contend is the washing away of his precious surface-soil by 
 the annual heavy rains, which carry down hundreds of tons of the 
 best soil, possibly to enrich some one else in the low country, but 
 more probably to be lost in the ocean. This might, in a measure, be 
 obviated by more systematic drainage, but that of course means more 
 coolies and more outlay, and both of these are serious difficulties. 
 
 Amongst a planter's varied anxieties is the care of his coolies 
 when they fall sick, as these natives of the hot dry plains of Southern 
 India are very apt to do, in the cold dreary rainy season of the 
 mountain districts. Occasionally a very serious outbreak of illness 
 occurs, when, perhaps, the nearest doctor is far away, and the young 
 planter is thrown on his own resources. Such was the outbreak of 
 cholera which occurred in July 1891 (a terribly rainy season) at 
 Lebanon in Madulkele. 
 
 An epidemic of dysentery ripened into cholera of so virulent a 
 type that in many cases death ensued within six hours. Some 
 coolies who had turned out at muster at 6 a.m. were dead at ten the 
 same morning. There were in all forty bona fide seizures, besides a 
 crowd of frightened men and women who were doctored on chance, 
 and twenty-five died in such horrible cramps that their bodies could 
 not be straightened, and the survivors were so terrified that it was 
 difficult to compel them to bury the dead. 
 
 Imagine how terrible a charge to be suddenly thrown on a young 
 planter.' He proved equal to the emergency, however ; physicked, 
 blistered, and rubbed down all the patients with his own hands till 
 an experienced cholera doctor came to his aid from Kandy. Two poor 
 fellows died in his kitchen-verandah. It was somewhat remarkable 
 that of the twenty-five deaths only six were women. 
 
 Happily, such a terrible experience as this is rare, but there are 
 continual occasions for care and the exercise of much discrimination 
 to discern between illness and idleness— a quality which does some- 
 times assert itself even in these energetic and industrious Tamil 
 coolies, who are the backbone of all island labour. In days of old 
 these immigrants from the mainland invaded Ceylon as ruthless 
 conquerors ; now they come as valuable helpers in every enterprise. 
 
 How important a place they occupy may be gathered from the 
 fact that there are always from 200,000 to 300,000 at work on the 
 plantations (in the time of the Madras famine in 1878 about 400,000 
 
 1 Mr. Thomas Uickson.
 
 IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 519 
 
 contrived to make a living in Ceylon). When at home in Southern 
 India, their average earnings are between 3/. and 4/. a year, on 
 which they maintain themselves and their families, always reserving 
 a margin for temj^le- offerings. 
 
 In Ceylon they have regular work and regular pay, earning about 
 four times as much as they do on the mainland, besides receiving 
 certain extras in kind — a roof, a bit of garden in which to grow vege- 
 tables, a blanket, and medical attendance in sickness. , Their staple 
 food is rice, of which an enormous supply is imported from the 
 mainland. A man's wages range from 9^. to is. a day ; a woman 
 can earn about 7^/,, and a child 3^. ; so they are well off and generally 
 content, their relations with their employers being almost invariably 
 kind. On every estate there is a long row of mud huts, which are 
 ' the coolie lines,' and very uninviting quarters they appear to 
 Europeans. 
 
 The Singhalese furnish a very small proportion of the estate 
 labourers, and are chiefly employed when extra hands are needed for 
 light work, such as plucking tea-leaf in the season ; for, although no 
 one can get through hard toil better and quicker than the Singhalese, 
 they have a fixed belief that all work is derogatory save that which 
 produces food for their own families. So although they work well 
 on their own paddy-field (and send hardy deep-sea fishers to the 
 north of the Isle, while the Tamil fishers stick to the shore), they 
 contrive to earn a general character for indolence, and go about their 
 work in a style which often reminded me of a certain Ross-shire 
 boatman, who was supposed to provide fish for the laird's table, but 
 therein frequently failed. One day his mistress ventured to compare 
 his ill-filled creel with that of a visitor on an adjoining estate, 
 mentioning how many fish he had brought home. ' Oh ! 'deed, I weel 
 believe it,' was the reply ; '////> />ia/i ! Jic'll just be making a toil of 
 it ! ' 
 
 The Singhalese are said to be somewhat more conscientious than the 
 Tamil coolies as regards doing well what they undertake. At the same 
 time, if it is work which can possibly be done by women and children, 
 these will certainly be deputed to do it. I think, however, that as 
 regards the employment of deputies, the palm must be awarded to a 
 Malay conductor, who was asked whether he was observing the fast 
 of Ramadan. He replied that he was not, as he was working hard 
 and required his food, but that ]ie tvas making Jiis wife keep it ! 
 
 Of course, on estates, employers take care that their coolies do
 
 S20 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 work energetically, but as a specimen of really indolent occupation, 
 you should watch a gang of Government coolies working on the 
 roads — those excellent roads which overspread the country in every 
 direction like a network. In spreading metal, one powerful man fills 
 a very small basket, which another strong man lifts on to the head of a 
 woman, who walks a few yards, empties it on to the road, and then 
 returns for another load. 
 
 Then when the roads are to be pounded, a gang of able-bodied 
 men stand in a group, while one of them sings a long monotonous 
 ditty rather like a Gaelic song, and at the end of each verse of four 
 lines all simultaneously raise their pounding blocks and let them 
 drop with a thump on the road. It has been calculated that if they 
 make thirty strokes in an hour, they are above the average ! 
 
 As I have said, these poor coolies are utterly miserable in rainy 
 weather, although the planters do their best to clothe them. I never 
 guessed till I saw these gangs what becomes of old regimental great- 
 coats. But when the sun shines and their scanty drapery has been 
 recently washed, and large, bright turbans well put on, they look as 
 cheery as one could wish, and the women especially are most 
 picturesque, with their fine glossy black hair, large dreamy black 
 eyes, and numerous ornaments on ears, neck, arms, and ankles — 
 some indeed only of painted earthenware, and the majority of bell- 
 metal, but others of real silver, massive but of coarse workmanship. 
 Their gay drapery is worn in most artistic folds. 
 
 Many of their merry little brown children wear no clothes what- 
 ever, even their heads being shaved and oiled, all save one little tuft 
 of black hair. Shaving, by the way, is generally done with bits of 
 broken bottles ! Sometimes you see pretty little girls (Tamil) whose 
 sole decoration is a silver fig-leaf {Finis J^e/igiosa), very suggestive of 
 the legend that here was the Paradise of our first parents ! Some 
 poor little girls are weighted with a short, heavy, leaden chain passed 
 through a slit in the ear where European women wear their small 
 earrings. By long weighting in this fashion, the poor ear can be 
 lengthened so as literally to touch the shoulder, and is then loaded 
 with rings — truly hideous in our eyes, and involving much suffering 
 in youth. But pride, they say, feels no pain, so we must hope that 
 this is a case in point. The top of the ear is adorned with a small 
 close fitting stud, like that often worn on one side of the nose. 
 
 One of the first things that struck me as strange on reaching the 
 planting districts, is the fact that the names by which estates are
 
 IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 521 
 
 known to Europeans convey nothing to the minds of the men who 
 work on them. My first experience of this difficulty was when en 
 route to Mrs. Eosanquet's pleasant home at Rosita in Dimbula, and 
 my Tamil driver, not having received his instructions before starting, 
 drove stolidly on for fully six miles beyond the turning, totally 
 ignoring my vain expostulating queries, 'Rosita?' ' Bosanquet dorre' 
 {i.e., master). It was quite useless ; sa there was nothing for it but 
 to drive on till I espied a European bungalow, to which I sent a 
 written message, which happily brought a tall white man stalking 
 down through the coffee to say we f?iust bait the horse and breakfast 
 at his house ; where, accordingly, we were most hospitably enter- 
 tained, and then duly forwarded to our destination. 
 
 Considering that all the coolies are Tamils imported from Southern 
 India, one would naturally suppose that they would accept whatever 
 name the owner of an estate has been pleased to give to the piece of 
 forest he has cleared ; but so far from this being the case, there is 
 scarcely an estate in the island which is not known to Europeans 
 and their labourers under totally distinct names, so that even in the 
 rare case of a Tamil coolie understanding English, he could not 
 direct you to an estate unless you spoke of it by its Tamil name, and 
 these are sometimes very confusing. 
 
 Thus, supposing I wish to visit the estate of Didoola, I must 
 direct my coolies to Palla Kaduga?iava ; but supposing I am on my 
 way to Kaduganawa, I must bid them carry me to Mudaliyarthotta))i. 
 I scarcely wonder at finding that places called after homes in Britain 
 retain Singhalese names. Thus Abercairney in Dickoya, and Rosita 
 in Dimbula, are both known as Sinne Kottagalla ; Feteresso con- 
 tinues to be known as Anandawatte, Glen Cairn as Manickainbantotte, 
 Gorthie as Ilindagalla, Blair Athol as Sinne Darrawella, Braemore 
 as Kooda Malleapoo, Fassifern as Agra Fatena, Waverley as Bflf>ate- 
 /awa, Craigellachie as Putim Road, Malvern as Partanibasi, ^Vindsor 
 Forest as Rajah To/am, Dufifus as Pusila Tottam, Forres as Nuga- 
 7vattie, &c. But it is strange to find that even genuine Singhalese 
 names are not accepted; as, for instance, Gangaroowa, which to the 
 coolie is known as Raja Tottam, while Oolanakanda is Ulaiikanthai, 
 AN'ewelkellie is Vevagodde, Ouvahkellie is Kagagalla ; while in some 
 cases the coolies know estates only by their name for certain firms or 
 companies, e.g., Diyagama is only recognised as Company Totum ; 
 Edinburgh and Inverness estates are both Nilghery Totum. As this 
 system of double names applies to about fifteen hundred estates, the
 
 522 TIVO HAPPY yPlARS IN CEYLON 
 
 new arrival in any district must find the study of his 'Estates 
 Directory ' an essential part of his education. 
 
 In looking over a list of these Highland homes, I am struck by 
 the predominance of Scotch names, as suggestive of the clinging to 
 dear old associations which is always supposed specially to characterise 
 men born in hilly countries. In the low country this inspiration 
 seems to be lacking, for, in a list of about 350 cocoa-nut estates, I 
 only find four Scotch names. 
 
 I will not attempt to give details of the j)leasant months I spent 
 in the various planting districts, for I fear I must have already tried 
 the patience of my readers. I can only say that in each district I 
 found the same hospitable welcome, and was struck with the cordiality 
 and good-fellowship which forms so marked a characteristic of life 
 among the planters. 
 
 Of course a lover of beautiful nature cannot but mourn over the 
 bleak ugliness of range beyond range of mountains all totally denuded 
 of any vegetation whatever except the very monotonous carefully- 
 pruned bushes, growing amid the blackened or sun-bleached stumps 
 of what but a little while ago were noble forest trees, now standing 
 like headstones in some vast cemetery. 
 
 Day after day we witnessed marvellous effects of opal light and 
 strange blue mists, telling of great forest-burnings, and, on favourable 
 days, marked on every side the column of dense lurid smoke rising 
 from some glen or valley that was about to be ' improved.' At 
 several of these ' burns ' we were actually present, when tracts of two 
 or three hundred acres were committed to the flames, and for hours 
 we watched the wild conflagration raging — a scene of indescribable 
 grandeur. Sometimes the great burnings so affected the atmosphere 
 as to bring on tremendous rain-storms, and on one occasion, when 
 we had to ford a river, we _got across only just in time before the 
 stream came down in flood. 
 
 Out of so many thousand acres of beautiful timber ruthlessly 
 destroyed, one tree excited my special regret. It was a majestic 
 banyan-tree, which had occupied the only piece of quite level ground 
 at the Yoxford. That ground was the only suitable spot for the 
 erection of a bungalow, so the grand old tree had been felled, and 
 the ground was strewn with its huge trunk and arms — a sorry sight ! 
 
 As regards social meetings, men gathered from far and near for 
 church services, especially at Christmas and New Year, as also for 
 occasional cricket-matches, never allowing their energies to be damped
 
 IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 523 
 
 by any amount of rain. And sometimes, as a very great event, there 
 was a cheery ball, when the principal coffee-store in the district was 
 swept out and elaborately decorated as a ball-room, and the nearest 
 bungalow was given up to the ladies to dress and sleep in, as they had 
 probably ridden over hill, valley, and torrent for many miles to attend 
 the unwonted festivity. 
 
 At the time of my visit to Dimbula, there were actually thirty-five 
 ladies in the district — a true sign of prosperity — and a ball was not a 
 matter of indifference to either sex ; indeed, the hearty honest enjoy- 
 ment of existence among the planters, and the zest with which they 
 enter into whatever business or pleasure is the order of the day, is 
 one of the pleasantest features of life in the mountain districts. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 ASCENT OF Adam's peak 
 
 Adam's Peak — The Sri Pada, or Holy Foot — Footprints in Britain — In Sicily — Of 
 Vishnu — Of St. Thomas — Of Hercules — Of Montezuma — Of Buddha and Siva — 
 Adam and Moses — Ascent of Allegalla, Kurunegalla, and Adam's Peak. 
 
 The first impressions of the traveller approaching Ceylon must in 
 a great measure depend on the state of the atmosphere. In some 
 seasons he will see only the monotonous levels of the low country ; 
 at other times the mountain ranges of the interior are clearly visible, 
 the whole crowned by one sharp pinnacle, about fifty miles inland 
 from Colombo. 
 
 That pinnacle is pointed out to him as Adam's Peak ; but if he 
 knows aught of the story of the Isle, he will know that is only the 
 name given to it by foreigners, and founded on the legend as taught 
 them by some Mahommedan ; but though called by many names, each 
 denoting sanctity, it is emphatically known to all inhal)itants of 
 Ceylon, of whatever creed, as The Sri Pada — The Holy Foot, so 
 named on account of a natural mark on the extreme summit, which, 
 to the eye of faith, was in remote ages in some degree suggestive of 
 a huge footprint, and was accordingly revered as a miraculous token 
 of the place having once been visited by some supernatural being (it 
 must have been in the days when giants walked the earth). 
 
 As various creeds developed, the adherents of each claimed The
 
 5^4 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Footprint as that of their own ideal, and so this particular mark has 
 attained a celebrity far above those on any of the numerous rocks 
 similarly reverenced in other lands. 
 
 And very curious it is to note in how many parts of the world 
 certain rocks have from time immemorial been places of sacred 
 pilgrimage on account of some natural indentation bearing some re- 
 semblance to a gigantic human footprint. 
 
 These have generally been somewhat elaborated by pious hands, 
 which define the toes and perfect the outline, and the footprint then 
 becomes an object of the most devout homage to thousands of human 
 beings, who believe it to be the true spot of earth, hallowed for ever- 
 more by the fact that it was the first or the last touched either by the 
 founders of their religion (whatever that may happen to be) or by 
 some venerated hero. 
 
 We need not go far for one example, for in our own little isle our 
 favourite British hero is thus commemorated. At Tintagel, in Corn- 
 wall, where the ruins of King Arthur's castle stand, on the summit of 
 a projecting crag rising from the sea, and connected with the main- 
 land only by a narrow neck of land (a spot once well-nigh inaccessible, 
 and only to be reached by steep steps cut in the rock), a large un- 
 shapely mark, deeply impressed on a big boulder, is said to be the 
 footprint of the great pure king. 
 
 Not far off a modern footprint is shown, which, as years roll on, 
 will doubtless be revered as that of the great good queen, for on the 
 pier at St. Michael's Mount an inlaid brass marks the first footprint 
 of Queen Victoria on the occasion of her visit with the Prince Consort 
 in 1846. As the idea of this commemoration was not mooted till 
 after Her Most Gracious Majesty's departure, it was unfortunately 
 impossible to secure the outline of her own foot, but a boot supposed 
 to have belonged to one of her attendants was honoured by becom- 
 ing its representative ! So says the head boatman of the castle at 
 St. Michael's Mount. 
 
 Students of Hindoo mythology, or travellers who have ventured 
 to invade the temples of Vishnu, will doubtless remember the reverence 
 accorded to many footprints ascribed to that god, whose votaries are 
 distinguished by curved lines daily painted on their forehead in white, 
 red, or yellow lines, as the symbol of his sacred foot or feet, as the 
 case may be, as different sects dispute as to the propriety of thus 
 indicating one foot or two. So the sect which is in favour of only 
 one foot indicates it by one curved line of white between the eyes.
 
 ASCENT OF ADAM'S PEAK 525 
 
 crossed by a red mark in honour of his wife. Another sect indicates 
 both feet resting on two lotus blossoms ; and so bitter are the dis- 
 putes concerning these frontal emblems, that as the same images are 
 worshipped by both sects in the same temples, ruinous lawsuits some- 
 times arise between the two factions as to which mark shall be im- 
 pressed on the images ! ' 
 
 Thus painted or engraved representations of Vishnu's feet enter 
 largely into his worship. At the great annual festival held in his 
 honour in the month of May at Conjeveram (forty miles to the south 
 of Madras) — a festival which is attended by an incalculable multitude 
 of worshippers — one of the priests in immediate attendance on the 
 image of Vishnu carries a golden cup within which is engraven the 
 likeness of Vishnu's feet ; and the chief craving of each individual 
 in that vast surging throng is to struggle for a place so close to the 
 procession that the priest who bears the cup may let it rest for one 
 moment on his head — a touch ensuring blessing in this and in all 
 future lives. ' Wilt thou not come and place thy flowery feet upon 
 my head?' is the fervent prayer of each longing soul.^ 
 
 Knowing the policy which has led the Church of Rome in all 
 heathen countries as far as possible to adapt Christian legends to all 
 objects specially venerated by the people (thus sanctioning their 
 continuance of a homage which could not be at once uprooted), we 
 need not wonder to find Portuguese writers attributing these revered 
 rock-marks to Christian saints; and De Couta records how, in his 
 time, a stone at Colombo bore the deep impress of the knees of St. 
 Thomas, who had previously worn a similar hollow on a rock at 
 Meliapore, near Madras. How his poor knees must have ached I ^ 
 
 Even at the present day, the Roman Catholic Christians of Ceylon 
 make pilgrimage to the footprint on Adam's Peak, as to that of St. 
 Thomas, though some Portuguese writers attribute it to the eunuch 
 of Candace. In Valenteyn's account he says the mountain was 
 esteemed most sacred by the Catholics of India, while Percival 
 related that ' the Roman Catholics have taken advantage of the 
 
 ' See ' III the Himalayas,' pp. 23, 24. Chatto & Windus. 
 
 2 1 scarcely like to compare words from Holy Scripture in this connection, but 
 there is a curious example of Oriental phraseology in Isaiah Ix. 14, 15, where it is 
 written, 'All they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy 
 feet. ... I will make the pl.ice of My Feet glorious.' 
 
 ^ .\t .\nuradhapura t«o marks on the granite pavement of the Ruanwelli Dagoha 
 arc pointed out as having been worn by the knees of the devout king Bdtiya-tisia, who 
 reigned from 19 B.C. to A.u. 9.
 
 526 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 current superstition to forward tlic propagation of their own tenets, 
 and a chapel which they have erected on tlic mountain is yearly 
 frecjuented by vast numbers of black Christians of the Portuguese 
 and Malabar races.' 
 
 Of an early Christian saint of the Western Church it is recorded 
 by Willebad (an Anglo-Saxon, who in the year a.d. 761 journeyed 
 in Sicily) that he was shown 'her shoe-prints' in the prison at 
 Catania. • 
 
 In the Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives a rock is 
 shown within the chapel having a natural cavity, described as the 
 footprint of our Lord. The earliest record of this mark is that by 
 Arculf, who mentions the impression of two footprints. Now there 
 is only one, with no resemblance to any foot. 
 
 In days of old, Herodotus told of a gigantic footprint on a rock 
 near Syras in Scythia, and which was believed to be that of Hercules ; 
 and in the New World we find the Mexicans revering a mark on a 
 huge block of porphyry which they suppose to have been imprinted 
 by the imperial foot of Montezuma. 
 
 Few who have entered the British JNIuseum can have failed to 
 note the casts of sculptures from the ancient Tope of Amravati in 
 Southern India which adorn the walls of the grand stairs, and the 
 
 1 In a very startling list of venerated objects which the Hon. J. W. Percy saw in 
 Rome about the year 1850, he mentions a drawing or tracing representing The Sole 
 OF THE Shoe of the Virgin Marv, edged at the margin with a glory, and with a 
 star at the upper end. Within the tracing the following notice of an indulgence is 
 printed : 
 
 ' Hail Mary, 
 Most Holy, 
 Virgin Mother 
 Of God. 
 
 'The true measure of the foot of the Most Blessed Mother of God, taken from her 
 real shoe, which, n'ith the highest devotion, is preserved i?i a monastery in Spain. The 
 Pontiff John XXII. conceded three hundred years of Indulgence unto whomsoever 
 shall three times kiss this measure and at the same time recite three Ave Marias ; the 
 which also was confirmed by Pope Clement VIII., the year of our Redemption, 1603. 
 
 ' This Indulgence not being limited in respect to number, may be acquired as 
 manv times as shall be desired by the devotees of the Most Holy Virgin Mary. It may 
 be applied to the souls in Purgatory. And it is to be permitted, to the greater glory 
 of the Queen of Heaven, to take from this measure other similar measures, the which 
 shall have the same Indulgence. 
 
 "Mary, Mother of Grace, 
 Pray for us." ' 
 
 — ' Romanism as it E.\ists at Rome,' Hon. J. W. Percy, pp. 127, 128.
 
 ASCENT OF ADAM'S PEAK 527 
 
 attention of many has, doubtless, been arrested by two slabs on each 
 of which are sculptured only two footprints. To the devout Buddhists 
 these double footmarks are said to have symbolised the invisible 
 presence of Buddha — a tenet, however, wholly unwarranted by his 
 own teaching. 
 
 Passing up these stairs to that corner of the new gallery which is 
 devoted to Buddhist mythology, we note a great stone slab on which 
 is sculptured one huge footprint nearly five feet in length. The 
 whole is covered with elaborate symbolic carving, and each toe is 
 adorned with a curious object like a large spiral shell. The outline 
 of this foot is defined by a raised border, originally carved in a 
 pattern like scale-armour, but at a later period this has been coated 
 with plaster and encrusted with bits of looking-glass and coloured 
 glass representing gems. All that is known of the history of this 
 once-venerated object is that it was brought from Burmah by Captain 
 Marryat ; but by what means he obtained it, or to what mountain or 
 temple it formerly attracted devout worshippers, there is unfortunately 
 no record. 
 
 Happily for the archaeologist, the most celebrated of these great 
 footprints are on immovable rock-boulders. 
 
 It seems probable that there are, or have been, a considerable 
 number of rocks thus sanctified wherever the religion of Buddha has 
 held sway, for Hiouen-Thsiang, the celebrated Chinese pilgrim, who 
 devoted the years between a.d. 629 and 645 to visiting all the most 
 noted shrines of India, makes continual allusion to having seen 
 among their sacred objects the footprints left by Tathagata (by which 
 name he describes Buddha), where he walked to and fro preaching 
 the law. 
 
 Such preaching was described as 'turning the wheel of the law;' 
 hence a simple wheel, sometimes overshadowed by the honorific 
 umbrella, is a frequent symbol in Buddhism ; ' and among the very 
 ancient sculptures at the Sanchi Tope and elsewhere we find repre- 
 sentations of Buddha's feet, on which are depicted the symbolic wheel 
 and the sivastica (the latter is a peculiar mark, something between a 
 cross and a (ireek fret). 
 
 Hiouen-Thsiang also relates strange legends concerning the 
 
 actual feet, telling how, wlien the body of Buddha was about to be 
 
 burnt at Kusinagara, after it had been swathed in a thousand napkins 
 
 and enclosed in a heavy coftin, which rested on a funeral pyre of 
 
 ^ ' In the Himalayas,' ' The Sacred Wheel,' pp. 430-43.}. Chatto & Windus.
 
 528 TIFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 scented wood, lo ! at that moment Tathagata revealed his feet, 
 causing them to project from the coffin, and his favourite disciple, 
 Kasyapa, saw that they bore the sign of the wheel and other marks 
 of various colours ; and as he marvelled what these could be, the 
 dead spoke, and told him that these were the marks of tears, which 
 gods and men, moved by pity, had wept because of his death. (I 
 may observe that two lotus blossoms bearing the marks of Buddha's 
 feet are among the subjects which are most frequently represented in 
 the sacred pictures of Japan.) 
 
 At the present day, in the province of Behar in India, and also 
 in Siam, at Prabat, near Bangkok, several temples glory in the 
 possession of rocks exhibiting these revered traces of Gautama 
 Buddha — doubtless the very rocks of which Hiouen-Thsiang wrote. 
 
 A still more ancient Chinese traveller. Fa Hian, who visited 
 Ceylon a.d. 413, tells of two sacred footprints of Fo {i.e., Buddha), 
 one of which lay quite in the north of the island. More recent 
 Chinese writers attribute the mark on Adam's Peak to Pwan-koo, 
 the first man. 
 
 Fourteen hundred and si.xty years later I, too, followed the pilgrim 
 path to visit several such footprints. The one mentioned by Fa 
 Hian in the far north is now forgotten, but I found one on the 
 summit of AUegalla Peak, another on a mountainous mass of red 
 rock at Kurunegalla, and a third (which is emphatically The Foot- 
 print) on the summit of Adam's Peak. 
 
 I was also shown marks — confessedly artificial — in the Buddhist 
 temples at Cotta and at the Alu Vihara, where they are simply 
 revered as models of the True Footprint on the summit of the Peak. 
 Another at the temple of Kelany, near Colombo, has the credit of 
 being genuine, and is declared by the sacred Buddhist books to be 
 so, having been imprinted by Gautama Buddha when he appeared 
 on his third visit to Ceylon to preach to the Nagas, or snake-wor- 
 shippers. But this mark is imprinted on a rock in the middle of the 
 river, and the cool rushing waters circling around it in ceaseless 
 homage overflow and conceal it from the eyes of men. This is the 
 legend told of a deep eddy in the Kelani-Ganga. 
 
 Yet another, confessedly of recent manufacture, is shown on the 
 summit of the great rock of Isuru-muniya, a very ancient rock-temple 
 at Anuradhapura. It is reached by a flight of rock-cut steps. 
 
 A peculiarity of all these footprints is their gigantic size, the 
 smallest which I have seen being that on the western summit of
 
 ASCENT OF ADA.IPS PEAI^ 5-^9 
 
 Allegalla, which is only 4 feet 6 inches by 2 feet ! Those on Ku- 
 runegalla, and on Adam's Peak are each 6 feet in length, as I 
 proved by lying down full length on them in absence of the guardian 
 priests ! But to the eye of faith this is no hindrance, for according 
 to Mahommedan tradition, Adam was the height of a tall palm-tree 
 (the tomb at Yeddah, near Mecca, which is reverenced as that of Eve, 
 is 70 feet in length). Buddha likewise is said to have been 27 feet 
 in height, and this is about the proportion which he bears to other 
 saints in Japanese pictures. But in every country where he is wor- 
 shipped, especially in China and Japan, there are cyclopean images 
 of him far taller than that. ' 
 
 As regards Siva and Saman, who also receive credit for the big 
 footprint, they, being gods, could of course assume any size they 
 pleased. 
 
 Most of the world's revered footprints have been appropriated by 
 the Buddhists, who have not scrupled to manufocture a considerable 
 number. I visited one of the latter class in China, on a rock within 
 the Temple of the Five Genii, in the heart of the city of Canton — a 
 temple where the homage bestowed on the footprint is quite secondary 
 to that accorded to five rough-hewn stones, which represent five 
 celestial rams, on which the five good genii descended to Canton. ^ 
 
 Even the grave Mahommedans, with all their theoretic abhorrence 
 of everything savouring of superstition or idolatry, reverence various 
 rock-marks which they affirm to have been the footprints of prophets 
 or great saints. Of course the most venerated relic of this class is 
 that at Mecca, where, within the sacred enclosure of the Kaaba (that 
 little temple which to all Mahommedans is the holy of holies), there 
 is a small building erected over a sacred stone, which they beheve to 
 have been brought thither by Abraham, and on which he stood while 
 building the Kaaba. It bears the impress of his two feet, the big 
 toes being deeply indented. Into these, devout pilgrims pour water, 
 and drink thereof, and also wash their faces as a .symbolic purification. 
 This stone is always kept covered with a veil of pure silk ; it must on 
 no account be mixed with cotton. Three difierent veils are kept for 
 use in different years, one green, one black, and one red ; all are 
 embroidered in gold. 
 
 Another greatly revered Mahommedan relic is the footprint of 
 Moses at Damascus. Over this sacred rock has been built a mosque, 
 
 1 See page 395. 
 
 'i 'Wanderings in China.' C. F. Gordon Gumming. \'ol. i. p. 49. 
 
 il M
 
 530 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 which more than five hundred years ago bore the name of ' The 
 Mosque of the Foot' It was visited about the year a.d. 1324 by the 
 celebrated Moorish pilgrim, Ibn Batuta, who, fired with a desire to 
 visit every place deemed sacred by Mahommedans, started from his 
 native city of Tangiers, and for twenty- eight years (when travel was a 
 very different matter to our easy journeys now-a-days) wandered in 
 ceaseless pilgrimage from shrine to shrine. 
 
 At Shiraz he visited the tomb of the saintly Abu Abd Allah, who, 
 he says, first ' made known the way from India to the Mountain ot 
 Serendib,' i.e., Adam's Peak in Ceylon. As this saint died early in 
 the tenth century, it is evident that Mahommedans had ere then 
 accepted the footprint on the summit of the Peak as that of Adam — 
 an idea which, strangely enough, they seem to have adopted from the 
 corrupt semi-Christian Gnostics, who borrowed a little from every 
 creed, not even omitting snake-worship, and who gave special pre- 
 eminence to Adam, as the original man. 
 
 In a Coptic manuscript of the fourth century, which is attributed 
 to Valentinus the Gnostic, there occurs a most curious passage, in 
 which our Saviour is represented as telling the Blessed Virgin that 
 lie has appointed an angel to be the special guardian of the footstep 
 impressed by the foot of led (/.<'., Adam). It is understood that this 
 passage has reference to Adam's Peak, and it is the oldest record we 
 possess of its sanctity. 
 
 The legend thus attached to it by the Gnostics was adopted by 
 the Arabs, and so it came to be accepted by Mahommedans in 
 general, all of whom reverence Adam as the purest creation of Allah, 
 and so rank him above all patriarchs and prophets— the first of God's 
 vicegerents upon earth. 
 
 As a matter of course, this Gnostic legend of the footprint was 
 rejected by the early Christians of purer creed, and so Moses of 
 Chorene, Patriarch of Alexandria, writing in the fourth or fifth century^ 
 affirms it to be undoubtedly the mark of Satan, who alighted here when 
 he fell from heaven ! 
 
 According to the orthodox teaching of the Koran, Paradise was 
 not on this earth, but in the seventh heaven ; and when Adam was 
 ejected thence, it was he, and not Satan, who alighted on the Peak, 
 and here he remained standing on one foot for about two centuries, 
 striving by penance to expiate his crime ; hence the mark worn on 
 the rock. Poor Eve tumbled into Arabia, and landed at Yeddah, 
 near Mecca, whither, when these centuries were ended, the Archangel
 
 ASCENT OF ADAM'S PEAK 531 
 
 guided Adam, who brought her back to hve in Ceylon, as the best 
 substitute for Paradise that earth could give. Both, however, are said 
 to have been carried back to Mecca for burial. 
 
 Whatever the varieties of creed that exist in this fair Isle, all alike 
 agree in their reverence for this one high pinnacle, and, most mar- 
 vellous to relate, all meet to worship side by side on the sacred 
 summit in peace and amity. 
 
 \\liile the Mahommedans crowd here to do homage to the memory 
 of Adam, the Tamils ^ believe that the footprint is that of one of their 
 gods, the worshippers of Siva claim it as his mark, while the votaries 
 of Vishnu ascribe it to Saman, who, in India, is worshipped under 
 the name of Lakshmana. He w^as the brother of Rama, one of the 
 incarnations of Vishnu, whose invasion of Ceylon to rescue his 
 beautiful wife, Sita, from the demon-king, Ravana, is celebrated in 
 the Ramayana, a nice little epic poem of 96,000 lines ! Being a 
 descendant of the sun, Saman's image is always painted yellow, and 
 to him are consecrated the scarlet rhododendron blossoms which 
 glorify the mountain summit. 
 
 It is in his honour that the butterflies — true children of the sun 
 — bear the name of Samanaliya. They are supposed to be especially 
 dear to him because of the vast flights which sometimes stream from 
 all parts of the Isle, all tending in the direction of the Peak ; hence 
 it is supposed that they, too, are on pilgrimage to do homage to the 
 holy footprint. (If it seems strange that the Singhalese should call 
 their exquisite butterflies by the name of a Hindoo god, we must 
 remember that Buddhism is so very accommodating and all-absorb- 
 ing that many Hindoo idols are worshipped in Buddhist temples.) 
 
 Very various are the names bestowed by all these religious bodies 
 on the shapely cone, which has been so well described as the sacred 
 citadel of ancient religions. To the Hindoos of all sects it is the 
 Mount Swangarrhanam, ' The ascent to heaven ; ' but the Sivites 
 distinguish it as Siva-noli-padam, while to the Vishnuvites it is 
 Samanala or Saman-takuta. To the Mahommedan Moormen it is 
 Baba-Adamalei, which is the equivalent of the European name Adam's 
 Peak, while to the Buddhist the term Sri Pada, ' The Footprint,' 
 is all expressive. 
 
 Thus, as clouds ever float around the loftiest mountain summit, 
 
 1 Some of these are the descendants of the old Malabar conquerors of Ceylon ; 
 others are constantly being imported from the mainland by the planters as labourers. 
 Most of these are of the Hindoo religion. 
 
 M M 2
 
 532 TIFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 so have the legends of many races gathered round this high pinnacle, 
 which consequently possesses for Oriental minds a concentrated essence 
 of sanctity altogether indescribable. 
 
 To the most careless traveller its natural beauty offers an irresis- 
 tible attraction, and never shall I forget my first glimpse of it as seen 
 from the sea, when we were still some miles distant from the coast, 
 the mountain apparently (though not really) far overtopping all 
 others. There, in the early dawn, it stood revealed — a deep-blue 
 peak cutting clear against a golden sky. To reach this high point 
 became the desire of my heart, but many months elapsed ere I ac- 
 complished it. 
 
 Meanwhile, I found welcome in a lovely home nestling high on 
 the face of a mountain scarcely less beautiful than xVdam's Peak, 
 though its name is comparatively unknown to the world in general. 
 This is Allegalla Peak, which towers majestically above the low wooded 
 hills and the rice-fields of the lowlands, its own slopes being clothed with 
 the richest vegetation and the lovely foliage of many varieties of palm. 
 
 On a glorious day, when not a cloud veiled the tranquil blue 
 heaven, we reached the summit of this Peak, which we found to be 
 really a double summit, connected by a rock-saddle. The eastern 
 peak is crowned with palms, as beseems so brave a mountain, but 
 our steps were attracted to the western peak, for there, on a rounded 
 slab of rough red rock, is imprinted the footmark to which the inhabi- 
 tants of this district do homage. I do not believe that it has any 
 pretension to be a genuine article, but it is a convenient representa- 
 tive of the true footprint on the summit of Adam's Peak, which, though 
 about forty miles distant, we saw clearly on the horizon, towering 
 above a sea of low-lying white mist. 
 
 This is a perfect footmark, four feet six inches in length by two 
 feet in width. Before it is a rude stone altar, on which some wor- 
 shippers had laid their offering of flowers and fruit, and the clear 
 water, which lay in a hollow of the scorching rock, suggested that it 
 had been carried thither and poured out on the footprint as an act of 
 worship. As we looked across the sea of white mist enfolding the 
 base of the distant Sri Pada, a long line of swiftly-advancing light 
 rounding the face of the precipice far below us marked the express 
 train rushing down from Kandy to Colombo, suggesting a strange 
 contrast between the pilgrims who through so many centuries have 
 toiled up that hill of difticulty, and the luxurious travellers of these 
 later days rushing on in their ceaseless race against time.
 
 ASCENT OF ADAM'S PEAK 533 
 
 About twenty miles to the north of Allegalla ' is Kurunegalla, 
 which foreigners used to call Kornegalle, and which is said to derive 
 its name from a gigantic rounded mass of red rock shaped like a 
 beetle. 
 
 Here, in the court of an ancient temple, the object of special 
 veneration, is a ' Holy Foot ' cut in the rock. It is the right foot ; 
 it is six feet in length, and points north-east. It is avowedly only a 
 model of the true footprint, but it has the advantage of being several 
 hundred years old, having been cut to assist the devotions of the 
 ancient kings of Kandy and the ladies of that royal house, when, in 
 the first half of the fourteenth century, Kurunegalla was the capital 
 of the kingdom, and the royal residence was situated at the base of 
 the crag, where, beneath the shadow of noble old trees, carved stones 
 and broken columns still mark the spot. 
 
 From this rock Adam's Peak is visible in a direct line to the 
 south, and one of my most delightful reminiscences of Ceylon is of a 
 moonlight night spent on its summit. I think part of its charm lay 
 in the knowledge that probably not half-a-dozen white women had 
 accomplished the ascent, for though it really is not very difficult to 
 a good scrambler, it is the fashion to consider it a very great feat, 
 and almost all the gentlemen, who had themselves been to the 
 summit, jeered at the idea of my accomplishing it. It occurred to 
 me, however, that I could probably climb quite as well as the Singha- 
 lese and Tamil women of all ages, who, year after year, toil up here for 
 the good of their souls. 
 
 In China I heard how, among the crowds of pilgrims who annu- 
 ally travel from most distant districts to worship on the summit of 
 the sacred Mount Tai-Shan, in the province of Shantung, and who 
 end their toilsome journey by five miles of steep climbing, a spectator 
 observed a company of old women, of whom the youngest was 
 seventy -eight and the oldest ninety years of age. With infinite pain 
 and toil these earnest pilgrims had accomplished a journey of 300 
 miles from south of Honan, their special object being to plead the 
 merit of their life-long fast from fish and flesh, and to crave a happy 
 transmigration for their souls. 
 
 Naturally, I thought that if poor old women of fourscore and ten 
 could accomplish such feats as these, I need not be discouraged ; so 
 I kept this aim ever in view during the most pleasant of pilgrimages, 
 
 1 Gallfi rneans rock. I had occasion to refer to these two crags in the last chapter, 
 b|jt I trusf my readers will excuse my rccalliiig tlicpi in this cnnncctipn.
 
 534 TWO HAPPY YILIRS IN CEYLOX 
 
 travelling by easy stages from one coffee estate to another, halting at 
 bungalows which bear such names as Blair Athol, Glen Tilt, Moray, 
 and Forres, strangely homelike sounds to my ears, and suggestive 
 of the colony of genial Scotchmen whom 1 found settled in every 
 corner. 
 
 I prefer, however, to speak of ' Britons,' for my kind entertainers 
 included men and women from England, Scotland, and Ireland. 
 One of these I had last known in London as a smart 'man-about- 
 town,' whose special vanity lay in his ' gardenia button-holes.' Here 
 the gardenias formed a fragrant and luxuriant hedge, but the busy 
 I)lanter cared more for the snow-white flowers and scarlet cherries of 
 the bright-green coffee-bushes which he and his regiment of coolies 
 had planted with so much toil among the charred stumps of the 
 burnt forest — tiny green bushes in a blackened waste. 
 
 In every direction save one, we looked out on an endless expanse 
 of undulating mountain-ranges, all clothed with the same monotonous 
 little bushes, replacing the beautiful primeval forest, which, however, 
 happily still remained almost intact on the ranges close to the Peak, 
 which seemed to tower from these lower ranges right up to heaven, 
 while in the foreground beautiful groups of trees, spared as yet by 
 ruthless axe and flame, lay mirrored in the clear waters of the 
 Mahavelli Ganga. 
 
 One comfortable home in which I was hospitably entertained has 
 been aptly named ' Bunyan,' in irresistible allusion to the ' Pilgrim's 
 Progress,' being right on the pilgrims' path. 
 
 ^^'hcn my friends found I was really bent on making the ascent, 
 a little band of stalwart planters soon arranged all details for a 
 })ilgrimage, and a very pleasant one it j^roved. It was in the month 
 of January, and we were favoured with ideal weather and a faultlessly 
 clear atmosphere. 
 
 Starting from Glen 'I'ilt, in the Maskeliya district, we walked or 
 rode as far as ' Forres,' ' where we slept, in order to be fresh for a very 
 early start next morning. It lies at the very foot of the Peak, or 
 rather of a long shoulder, along which we toiled for four hours, till 
 we reached an ambulam, or pilgrims' rest-house, at the foot of the 
 actual cone. 
 
 1 had hoped that I could have been carried thus far in a dandy, 
 which is a strip of canvas hung on a bamboo — a mode of travelling 
 
 ' To me a very familiar name, the town of Foijes, in Morayshire, being only three 
 miles from Altyrc, my birthplace.
 
 ASCENT OF ADAM'S PEAK 535 
 
 the advantages of which I had often proved in my Himalayan 
 wanderings, — but as the track lay up and down frightfully steep 
 ravines, or else through forest so thick that the long bamboo pole 
 could not make its way, I had soon to give up this attempt, and join 
 the walkers, consoling myself for the extra fatigue by the beauty of 
 the undergrowth of ferns, and the wonderful variety of lovely tints, 
 rich madder, sienna, crimson, delicate pink, and pale green, all due 
 to the young foliage, which here is ever developing all the year 
 round. 
 
 Gay caladium leaves mingled with a profusion of delicate maiden- 
 hair fern, while here and there wild bignonias or brilliant balsams 
 claimed admiration, as did also a luxuriant sort of stag's-horn moss, 
 and an occasional tuft of violets or forget-me-nots. 
 
 Having started at daybreak, we were all very glad of a halt for 
 breakfast beneath the rough shelter of the said rest-house, which is 
 merely an open shed. Happily, we had brought mats of talipat-palm 
 leaf, which we spread on the floor and thereon rested. Only for our 
 eyes there was no rest, as we gazed upwards at the majestic cone 
 shaped like a gigantic bell, and towering right above us, cutting sharp 
 against the deep-blue sky. The other side of the ravine presented a 
 front of mighty precipices. 
 
 At this halting place there are a few tiny shops, chiefly for the 
 sale of curry stuffs for the pilgrims, and much we marvelled to see 
 the multitudes of bottles of eau-de-cologne — genuine Jean Marie 
 Farina — at one shilling a bottle. Of course I invested, thinking it 
 would at least do to burn in my Etna, but little did I guess what a 
 villainous compound it was, which the very irreligious merchant 
 pawned off on devout pilgrims as a meet offering wherewith to anoint 
 the holy footprint. 
 
 The pilgrims are a never-failing crop. All the year round they 
 come and go, but their special season is at the spring festival in April 
 and May, just when the rains are at their height, and mountain 
 torrents are liable to rise suddenly and detain them for days, subject 
 to all manner of hardships ; but these, I suppose, only add to the 
 merits of the pilgrimage, for the sanctity of the season prevails, and 
 the pilgrims press on in a continuous stream, amounting to thousands 
 annually. The feebleness of old age is no drawback — grey-bearded 
 grandfathers and wrinkled, toothless old hags are escorted by all their 
 family, and sometimes a tottering old granny is borne on the back of 
 a stalwart son — a true deed of filial devotion — while mothers help
 
 536 TPi^O HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 their toddling little ones up the steep ascent which is to secure for 
 them such special blessing. 
 
 Some have travelled from the mainland of India, others from the 
 farthest districts of the Isle, long and toilsome journeys ; and when 
 they reach the base of the holy mount, they are so near the accom- 
 plishment of their heart's desire, that all weariness is well-nigh 
 forgotten, and ever and anon the stillness of the dense forest is broken 
 by the echo of the sliout of praise, 'Saadu ! Saiidu ! ' which is the 
 equivalent of ' Hallelujah ! Hallelujah !' 
 
 The great mass of pilgrims approach the mountain from the south 
 via Ratnapura, 'the city of rubies,' which, unless the accounts which 
 have been published are very highly-coloured^ must involve far more 
 difficult climbing and scrambling than anything we had to do. ^^'hen 
 they have ascended about 150 very ancient rock-hewn steps, attributed 
 to good King Prakrama Bahu I., himself a pilgrim, they come to a 
 most romantic bathing-place overshadowed by large trees. This is just 
 above a granite precipice, over which the Sita Ganga ' hurls itself on 
 to the boulders far below. 
 
 In these chill waters the pilgrims must bathe, and so purify them- 
 selves ere completing the ascent of the Holy Mount along precipitous 
 faces of rock, where their only safety lies in gripping the iron chains 
 which adventurous climbers have placed here for the benefit of weaker 
 heads. 
 
 As a matter of course, traditions, legends, and myths attach to 
 each rock and turn on the pilgrim path ; each over-hanging cliff, each 
 gushing spring, each rippling rivulet that rushes down the water-worn 
 ravines has its own story, in many cases vague and dreamy as the 
 mists which float around the towering pinnacle. l]ut as regards 
 practical details, it is well to consult a trustworthy pilgrim ; and 
 as Laurence Oliphant ascended the Peak from the Ratnapura 
 side, I may as well quote what he says on the subject, for the benefit 
 of anyone who may be undecided as to which route to select. 
 He says : — 
 
 ' \Ve passed the night at a native house in one of the higher 
 villages, and leaving our horses there, on the following morning 
 pursued our way on foot, amid scenery which at every step became 
 more grand and rugged, the path in places skirling the edge of dizzy 
 precipices, at the base of which foamed brawling torrents. 
 
 ■ The way was often rendered dangerous by the roots of large 
 
 J Cia>i"a means river.
 
 ASCENT OF ADAM'S PEAK 537 
 
 trees, which, having become sHppery by the morning mist, stretched 
 across the narrow path, and one of these nearly cost me my hfe. 
 The path at the spot was scarped on the precipitous hillside ; at least 
 300 feet below roared a torrent of boiling water, when my foot 
 slipped on a root, and I pitched over the sheer cliff. I heard the cry 
 of my companion as I disappeared, and had quite time to realise that 
 all was over, when I was brought up suddenly by the spreading 
 branches of a bush which was growing upon a projecting rock. 
 There was no standing ground anywhere, except the rock the bush 
 grew upon. 
 
 ' Looking up, I saw my companion and the natives who were 
 with us peering over the edge above, and to their intense relief 
 shouted that so far I was all right, but dared not move for fear the 
 bush would give way. They, however, strongly urged my scrambling 
 on to the rock ; and this, with a heart thumping so loudly that I 
 seemed to hear its palpitations, and a dizzy brain, I succeeded in 
 doing. 
 
 'The natives, of whom there were five or six, then undid their 
 long waistcloths, and tying them to each other, and to a piece of 
 cord, consisting of the united contributions of all the string of the 
 party and the packages they were carrying, made a rope just long 
 enough to reach me. Fastening this under my armpits, and holding 
 on to it with the energy of despair, or perhaps I should rather say of 
 hope, I was safely hauled to the top. 
 
 ' This adventure was not a very good preparation for what was in 
 store for us, when not very far from the top we reached the mauvais 
 pas of the whole ascent. Here again, we had a precipice with a 
 torrent at the bottom of it on one side, and on the other an over- 
 hanging cliff — not metaphorically overhanging, but literally its upper 
 edge projected some distance beyond the ledge on which we stood ; 
 it was not above forty feet high, and was scaled by an iron 
 ladder. 
 
 ' The agonising moment came when we had mounted this ladder 
 to the projecting edge, and had nothing between our backs and the 
 torrent some hundred of feet below, and then had to turn over the 
 edge and take hold of a chain which lay over an expanse of bare 
 sloping rock, to the links of which it was necessary to cling firmly, 
 while one hauled one's self on one's knees for twenty or thirty yards 
 over the by no means smooth surface. 
 
 ' My companion was so utterly demoralised that he roundly
 
 538 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 declared that nothing would induce him to make the descent of the 
 same place.' 
 
 I am happy to say that no such difficulties attended our ascent 
 from the Maskeliya, Dickoya, and Dimbula side. 
 
 Our ascent of the actual cone commenced immediately after 
 leaving the aforesaid rest-house. We crossed a clear crystal stream 
 rushing downward from the summit (such as when swollen by sudden 
 storm might well prove a serious hindrance to returning pilgrims). 
 Then, entering a deep fern- clad ravine, we struggled steadily upward, 
 and a very stiff climb it proved, like that of the very steepest stair 
 up an old cathedral tower a thousand feet high. This continued for 
 two and a half miles, sometimes in dark cool forest, sometimes along 
 a face of bare precipitous rock exposed to the scorching sun. The 
 path is like the bed of a watercourse, coming straight down from the 
 summit, with thick jungle on either side. The ravine is so narrow 
 that it is necessary to go single file, and it really is a serious difficulty 
 to meet pilgrims on their downward way. At intervals on either side 
 of the road there are cairns of small stones, heaped up by pilgrims, 
 just like those on the summit of Fuji-yama, and in the Himalayas, 
 and in Scotland. 
 
 I got some help by passing a rope round my waist and sending 
 two coolies ahead with the ends of it, which gave some support and 
 a gentle upward impetus. Happily some royal pilgrims of old had 
 flights of steps cut on the almost vertical slabs of slippery rock. 
 Some of the steps certainly are very high, but the difficulty is greatly 
 overrated, and in fair weather there is no danger whatever, though 
 the iron chains which hang along the face of a precipice at the 
 summit, are said to be really necessary for the pilgrims to hold on by 
 on stormy days ; indeed, the great iron chains by which the roof of 
 the little shrine is affixed to the rocks all round, tell the same story 
 of the wild sweeping of tempestuous winds and storms which often 
 rage around the summit and invest the peak with dread. 
 
 These chains arc said to have been originally placed here by 
 Alexander the Great, whom the Mahommedans affirm to have 
 climbed the pinnacle about n.c. 330, to do homage to the footprint 
 of Adam. Ibn Batuta, describing his ascent of the Peak in the 
 fourteenth century, tells how a ridge at the base of the cone bears 
 the name of the Conqueror, as does also a water-spring, at which all 
 pilgrims slake their thirst ; and Ashref, a Persian poet of the follow- 
 ing century, tells how, in order to facilitate the difficult and dangerous
 
 ASCENT OF ADAM'S PEAK 539 
 
 ascent, Alexander caused stanchions to be fixed in the face of the 
 cliff to sustain iron chains, by holding on to which they were able to 
 scale the precipitous rock without danger. Whoever has the merit 
 of first placing the chains, there they remain to the present day. 
 
 We accounted ourselves rarely fortunate in being favoured with a 
 day of calmest sunshine, for most evenings, both before and after our 
 expedition, closed with terrific thunderstorms, and for hours together 
 the Peak was veiled in dark clouds, so we had fully reckoned on the 
 possibility of such a night of awe. Instead of this, on reaching the 
 summit, our eyes were gladdened with a magnificent view of the 
 whole island, outstretched on every side. All around lay a vast 
 expanse of forest-clad mountain-ranges — the wholesale destruction 
 of the forests to prepare the way for cultivation being less con- 
 spicuous from this point than from many others ; and far away, 
 beyond wide sweeps of parklike country, traversed by silvery lines 
 which mark the course of rivers, and vanishing in a soft blue haze, a 
 line of glittering light revealed the presence of the encircling ocean. 
 
 All this we beheld at a glance, when, after a final steep climb up 
 the huge naked rock, about forty feet high, which forms the mountain 
 crown, we reached a morsel of level ground which lies about ten feet 
 below the summit, from which point a level pathway has been con- 
 structed, forming an oval of about 65 by 45 feet, passing round the 
 Peak, so as to enable pilgrims to perform the three orthodox turns, 
 following the course of the sun, by keeping the right hand next to the 
 rock all the time. The outer edge of this path is, happily, protected 
 by a low stone wall. Sorely, indeed, must the sunwise turns have 
 tried dizzy heads ere this was built by some pious pilgrims.' 
 
 So steep are the precipitous sides of this mighty cone, that one 
 marvels how the gnarled old rhododendron trees have contrived to 
 gain, and continue to retain, their hold on the rock, or how they find 
 sustenance. There they are, however, with their glossy leaves and 
 crimson blossoms, as gay as though rooted in the richest peat soil, 
 instead of being fed chiefly by the dews of heaven. 
 
 A final ascent of about ten steps brings us to the extreme summit 
 of the Peak, 7,352 feet above the sea. It is crowned by a picturescjue 
 little wooden temple, consisting merely of a light overhanging roof, 
 supported on slender columns, and open to every wind of heaven — 
 
 1 I liavc noted numerous instances of ' sunwise turns ' round all manner of sacred 
 objects, in ' In the Himalayas,' pp. 4, 250, 359, 430, 529, 551, 584, 590. Also ' In 
 the Hebrides," pp. 241-245. Published by Chatto & W'indus.
 
 54P TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 such winds as would carry it to the sea were it not for the strong iron 
 chains passing over it. Beneath this canoj))' Hes The Footprint, 
 revered not only by about four hundred million Buddhists, but also, 
 as I have just stated, by Hindoos and Mahommedans without 
 number, and even by Roman Catholic Christians. 
 
 Haj)pily for us, ascending at the end of January, we arrived before 
 the annual stream of pilgrims, so we found only a handful — a very 
 varied selection, however, beginning with our own party, which 
 included divers European nationalities, while the Oriental creeds 
 were represented by an old Hindoo Yogi in saffron-coloured robes, 
 and wearing a large rosary of black beads ; he had come from the 
 Punjab to worship Siva, while his neighbour, a Mahommedan priest, 
 had travelled all the way from Lahore, in Northern India, to do 
 homage to Adam on this sacred spot. He found the mountain air 
 exceedingly cold, and crouched over his fire, wrapped in a gorgeous 
 patchwork quilt, smoking his hubble-bubble. Several Christians 
 from the Malabar Coast were intent on the worship of St. Thomas. 
 
 Strange to say, the only representative of Buddhism present was 
 a small boy of the Amarapoora sect, who slept apart beneath an 
 overhanging rock near our hut, where we heard him singing his 
 midnight prayers most devoutly. He was a pretty little fellow, and 
 the yellow robes of Buddha harmonised well with his clear brown 
 skin and dark eyes. A wretched little hut, on the level just below 
 the summit, is reserved for the use of the senior priests, who, however, 
 have more comfortable quarters at the foot of the mountain when 
 not on duty here. We were told that the venerable high-priest of 
 the Peak lives up here a good deal during the pilgrim season. 
 
 While I made a careful drawing of the scene, my companions 
 were hard at work preparing our night quarters. Happily there still 
 remained the walls of a hut which was built on the occasion of Lady 
 Robinson's ascent ; so this was quickly cleaned out, thickly carpeted 
 with bamboo grass, and roofed with the large mats of talipat-palm 
 leaf which we had so fortunately brought with us ; so in the course 
 of a couple of hours we had a capital two-roomed house ready. This 
 had the merit of standing a little apart from the pilgrims, and was 
 perched upon rocks fringed with ferns and sweet pink orchids, and 
 overshadowed by rhododendron trees. 
 
 Suddenly, about twenty minutes before sunset, to our intense 
 delight, the far-famed shadow of the Peak fell eastward athwart the 
 plain, like ,a blue spirit-pyramid resting, not on the ground, but qx\
 
 ASCENT OP ADAM'S PEAH 541 
 
 the atmosphere ; for instead of assuming the forms of the mountains, 
 it lay in a faultless triangle ('an isosceles triangle,' observed one of 
 the party, last from Oxford), the lines as straight as if they had been 
 ruled, although the object casting the so-called shadow is a ragged 
 cone. 
 
 I suppose it is due to the fact of the sun being so much larger 
 than the earth that its level rays, divided by the base of the mountain, 
 seem to meet again on the opposite horizon. But such prosaic 
 speculation as to its cause, found no place in our thoughts while 
 gazing spell-bound on this wondrous apparition, which each moment 
 grew wider at the base, while lengthening till it touched the ocean 
 on the eastern horizon, and the sun sank beyond the western waves. 
 
 When the last glories of the afterglow had faded away, we had a 
 most cheery dinner by a moonlight so clear that we could distinguish 
 the whole island outspread far below us right away to the sea. Our 
 thinly-clad coolies suffered much from cold, and so tried to warm 
 themselves by dancing round their fires — a curious wild scene. The 
 gentlemen encouraged the dancers, and strove to warm them by 
 administering small drams of brandy, which they received in the 
 palm of the hand, crouching at the feet of the dorre — i.e., ' master.' 
 
 While this was going on, I crept up to the now deserted shrine, 
 and stood there alone beside the rock-mark, which in all ages has 
 inspired such amazing reverence in millions of my fellow-creatures. 
 During the regular pilgrim season the shrine is all hung with white 
 cloths, and the sacred footprint is covered by a model of itself made 
 of brass, inlaid with pieces of coloured glass. This model is the 
 modern substitute for the original, which was of pure gold, inlaid with 
 precious gems, and was seen here by Dutch travellers who ascended 
 the Peak in 1654. 
 
 In Valentyn's account of the Sri Pada in March 1654 he says : 
 ' The priests showed our people a gold plate representing the length 
 and breadth of the foot, on which were various figures, which they 
 said were formerly to be seen on the footprint itself; but that, after 
 the priests allowed them to be engraved on the gold, they disappeared 
 from the stone. These figures were sixty-eight in number, and may 
 be seen figured by Baldasus in his description of Coromandel, fol. 
 154, with other matters relating thereto.' 
 
 Perhaps the very elaborate symbols sculptured on the Burmese 
 footprint in the British Museum may afford some clue to these 
 vanished figures.
 
 542 TJVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Strange to say, among the offerings presented at the shrine fifty 
 years ago was an embossed silver covering for the great footmark, 
 the gift of Sir R. W. Horton, who held office as British Governor 
 from 1831 to 1837, and who thus emphasised the proclamation 
 made in the name of His Majesty King William IV., that pro- 
 tection would be continued to all rites and usages of the Buddhist 
 religion. 
 
 When Hoffmeister made the ascent in 1844, he found the foot- 
 print enclosed within a golden frame studded with gems of consider- 
 able size, of which, however, he pronounced that only a few were 
 genuine. 
 
 I had the better fortune to see the rock unadorned, and, if the 
 truth must be confessed, being anxious to measure it accurately for 
 myself, I lay down full length on it, and found it to be 4^1 inches 
 longer than myself, whereby I proved it to be just 6 feet in length. 
 I was told that the breadth at the toes is 32 inches ; that at the heel 
 is 26 inches. The natural mark is merely a slight indentation, 
 8 inches deeper at the toes than at the heel, but the imaginary outline 
 of the foot has been emphasised by a rim of plaster, coloured to 
 match the rock. The toes have also been defined. The footprint 
 points north-west. 
 
 According to a tradition quoted in Chinese records of the six- 
 teenth century, the hollow of the footprint should contain a never- 
 failing supply of fresh water, supplied from heaven, and which cures 
 all diseases. I am told that many sick folk make this toilsome 
 pilgrimage on purpose to drink of this water of life. I can only hope 
 that they do not often find the rock as dry as it was on this occasion ! 
 There is, however, a well at the foot of the mountain, which, although 
 its waters are less sacred, is nevertheless credited with miraculous 
 cures, and this also has been duly recorded by observant Chinese 
 travellers of the fourteenth century. So you see, the farther you 
 travel, the more surely you will prove that there is nothing really new 
 under the sun ! 
 
 After a while chilling mists began to arise from the deep valleys 
 and to creep up the mountain-side, and I was glad enough to join 
 the merry party beside the blazing fire, and then to seek rest in the 
 little hut, truly thankful for the kind forethought which had supplied 
 so goodly a store of warm blankets. 
 
 Ere the first glimmer of dawn I stole forth to look down upon 
 the wondrous sea of white mist, which seemed to cover the whole
 
 ASCENT OF ADAM'S PEAK 543 
 
 Isle with one fleecy shroud, a strangely eerie scene, all bathed in the 
 pale spiritual moonlight. Ever and anon the faint breeze stirred the 
 billowy surface, and a veil of transparent vapour floated upward to 
 play round the dark summits of the surrounding hills, which seemed 
 like innumerable islands on a glistening lake. One of these, bearing 
 the name of Uno Dhia Parawatia — a grand square- shaped rock- 
 mass — towers high above the surrounding ridges of densely-wooded 
 hills. 
 
 The stars were still shining brilliantly, while eastward the pale 
 primrose light was changing to a golden glow. Sometimes the up- 
 rolling clouds floated as if enfolding us, drifting beneath our feet as 
 though the solid earth were passing away from under us. 
 
 Wonderful and most impressive was the stillness. Just before 
 daybreak my ear caught the ascending murmur of voices, and peering 
 down the mountain-side, I discerned the glimmering torches which 
 told of the approach of a pilgrim band toiling up the steep ravine, 
 bent on reaching the summit ere sunrise. 
 
 Judging from my own experience, I should have thought they 
 could have little breath to spare. Nevertheless, they contrived to 
 cheer the way with sacred chants, and very wild and pathetic these 
 sounded as they floated up through the gloom of night. 
 
 At last the topmost stair was reached, and as each pilgrim set 
 foot on the level just below the shrine, he extinguished his torch of 
 blazing palm-leaves, and with bowed head and outstretched arms 
 stood wrapped in fervent adoration. Some knelt so lowlily that their 
 foreheads rested on the rock. Then facing the east — now streaked 
 with bars of orange betwixt purple clouds— they waited with earnest 
 faces, eagerly longing for the appearing of the sun, suggesting to my 
 mind a striking Oriental illustration of the words of the poet-king, 
 ' My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that ivatch for the 
 morning.^ ^ 
 
 Gradually the orange glow broadened, and the welling light grew 
 clearer and clearer, until, with a sudden bound, up rose the glorious 
 sun, and, as if with one voice, each watcher greeted its appearing with 
 the deep-toned ' Saiidu ! Saiidu!' which embodies such indescribable 
 intensity of devotion. 
 
 Beautiful in truth was that radiant light which, while the world 
 below still lay shrouded in gloom, kissed this high summit and the 
 
 1 Bible version of Psalm cxxx. 6.
 
 544 Tii'^o Happy years ix ceylon 
 
 glowing blossoms of the crimson rhododendron trees, and lent its 
 own brightness to the travel-stained white garments of the pilgrims. 
 
 But while these gazed spell-bound, absorbed in worship, we 
 quickly turned westward, and there, to our exceeding joy, once more 
 beheld the mighty shadow falling right across the island, and standing 
 out clear and distinct — a wondrous pyramid whose summit touched 
 the western horizon. The world below us still lay veiled in white 
 mist, now tinged with a delicate pink, as were also the mountain-tops 
 which rose so like islands from that vaporous sea. But right across 
 it all, the great spectral triangle, changing from delicate violet to 
 clear blue, lay outspread, its edge prismatic, like a faint rainbow. 
 
 We watched it for three hours, during which it gradually grew 
 shorter and more sombre, so that it was actually darker than the 
 forest-clad hills which lay in shadow before us, and across which it 
 fell. As the sun rose higher and higher, the blue pyramid gradually 
 grew narrower at the base, till finally it vanished, leaving us impressed 
 with the conviction that to this phenomenon must, in some measure, 
 be attributed the sanctity with which, in early ages, a people always 
 keenly addicted to nature-worship invested this mountain-top. Theii 
 modern descendants seemed to have no room for it in their full 
 hearts. 
 
 I may mention that I have witnessed this identical phenomenon 
 at sunrise from the summit of Fuji-Yama, the holy mountain of 
 Japan, and I have heard it said that a similar effect is to be seen 
 from Pike's Peak in Colorado, a mountain 14,157 feet in height, but 
 not remarkable in form. I have, however, seen a picture which 
 merely shows the sunset shadow of the mountain on the eastern sky 
 — not at all a triangle. From the summit of Mount Omei, the holy 
 mountain of the Chinese liuddhists, a very peculiar shadow is some- 
 times seen, capped by a marvellous prismatic halo, which is known 
 as the 'Glory of Buddha.' Occasionally, when the shadow of Adam's 
 Peak falls on mist, the spectral shadow seems to stand upright, taking 
 the conical form of the mountain, and a rainbow-girt halo rests on 
 its summit. 
 
 One traveller only, so far as I am aware, has had the good fortune 
 to see this wonderful shadow as a moonlight phenomenon, which, of 
 course, could only occur when an almost full moon was very near 
 the horizon, either rising or setting. This fortunate observer was 
 Laurence Oliphant, whose description of the scene is so striking that 
 again I cannot refrain from quoting his words.
 
 ASCENT OE ADAM'S PEAH 545 
 
 ' By the light of a moon a httle past the full, in the early morning, 
 I looked down from this isolated summit upon a sea of mist, which 
 stretched to the horizon in all directions, completely concealing the 
 landscape beneath me. Its white, compact, smooth surface almost 
 gave it the appearance of a field of snow, across zv/iich, in a deep black 
 shadow^ extended the conical form of t/ie mountain I was on, its apex 
 just touching; the horizon, and producing a scenic effect as unique as 
 it was imposing. 
 
 ' While I was watching it, the sharpness of its outline gradually 
 began to fade, the black shadow became by degrees less black, the 
 white mist more grey, and as the dawn slowly broke, the whole effect 
 was changed as by the wand of a magician. Another conical shadow 
 crept over the vast expa?tse on the opposite side of the mountain, which, 
 in its turn, reached to the horizon, as the sun rose over the tremulous 
 mist ; but the sun-shadow seemed to lack the cold mystery of the 
 moon-shadow it had driven away, and scarcely gave one time to 
 appreciate its own marvellous effects before the mist itself began 
 slowly to rise and to envelop us as in a winding-sheet. For half-an- 
 hour or more we were in the clouds and could see nothing ; then 
 suddenly they rolled away and revealed the magnificent panorama 
 which had been the object of our pilgrimage.' 
 
 Intently as we watched each change in this wondrous vision, we 
 did not fail to note the proceedings of our fellow-pilgrims, who, previous 
 to paying their vows at the holy shrine, walk thrice sunwise round it, 
 following the well-worn level footpath, and carrying their simple 
 offerings of flowers, chiefly the scarlet blossoms of the rhododendron 
 and the fragrant white champac and plumeria, raised on high in their 
 joined hands. Then a second time they performed the three sunwise 
 turns, this time bearing on one shoulder a brass lota filled with clear 
 icy water from a spring which lies about twelve feet below the summit, 
 and in which leaves wafted from Paradise are sometimes found 
 floating — so the pilgrims believe. A second spring lies about forty 
 feet lower down.' (Two silver bells were the gift of certain Moormen 
 to the honour of Adam, as were also two large brass lamps.) The 
 pilgrims then kneel in lowliest adoration whilst the priest pours out 
 
 1 It always seems strange to find water springs in the hard rock at a great altitude. 
 I saw two similar springs on the extreme summit of Fuji-Yarna in Japan, which is 
 simply a dormant crater, ^and others on the summit and in the crater of Ilaleakala in 
 the Sandwich Isles. See 'Fire Fountains of Hawaii,' vol. i. p. 264. Published by 
 Blackwood. 
 
 N N
 
 546 TllV HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 their offering of water upon the footprint, on which they also lay their 
 gift of flowers, and a few small coins for the use of the priests. Then, 
 dipijing their hands in the water thus sanctified, they wash their faces 
 in symbolic purification. 
 
 Afterwards it is customary for each pilgrim to tear a fragment 
 from his scanty raiment and knot it to one of the iron chains, to 
 remind Heaven of tlie petitions offered on this sacred spot. These 
 rags, old and new, form a fringe of many colours, enlivening the 
 rusty chains which secure the temple to the crag. Some of the links 
 in these ancient and modern chains are inscribed with the name of 
 the donor, who has thus presented a more enduring memorial than 
 the rag of his poor brother. Strange, is it not, how this identical 
 custom of rag-offering prevails in all regions of the earth, from 
 Ireland's holy wells to Himalayan mountains and sacred bushes ! 
 
 Some of the pilgrims had brought with them long strips of white 
 calico, wherewith the little priestling^covered the mystic rock, and on 
 each of which he traced with saffron (sacred yellow) an exceedingly 
 well-defined footprint. These were hung up to the eaves of the 
 temple, and thence fluttered flag-like till thoroughly dried, when the 
 devout pilgrims would carry them to distant lands, for the edification 
 of less fortunate believers. These are deemed a charm against the 
 evil-eye and sundry diseases. 
 
 Various travellers have noted a graceful detail of family life at the 
 conclusion of the appointed worship, namely, that husbands and 
 wives, children and parents, salute one another most reverently and 
 affectionately with lowly salaams ; the grey-haired wife, moved to 
 tears, almost embracing the feet of her venerable husband, and he 
 raising her lovingly — younger men simply exchanging salutations and 
 betel-leaves. 
 
 Thus, year after year, from the earliest ages of human history, have 
 pilgrim bands climbed this lofty summit to worship on the pinnacle 
 which, though we believe it to be no nearer to heaven than the 
 murkiest street of our crowded cities, is certainly far uplifted above 
 the levels of earth. 
 
 To say that the aboriginal native worshippers of the Isle revered 
 this rock-pinnacle long before the days of Gautama Buddha, is nothing, 
 for though he is said to have api)eared here more than five hundred 
 years before Christ, he was only the most recent of a series of Buddhas 
 — holy beings who are supposed to have honoured this earth with 
 their presence in divers ages. I believe the Singhalese legends tell
 
 Ascent of adaaps peai<: 547 
 
 of twenty-five Bucldhas who have visited Ceylon, of whom four are 
 said to have revealed themselves on this spot. 
 
 The first of these was Kukusanda, who appeared about u.c. 3000, 
 and found the Peak already known as Deiwakuta, ' Peak of the 
 God.' 
 
 The second Puddha who here revealed himself was Konagamma ; 
 he appeared b.c. 2099, and even at that early date the mount (so they 
 say) was already known as Samantakuta, in honour of Saman, who, 
 three hundred years previously, had, as I have already observed, 
 accompanied Rama when he conquered Ceylon. 
 
 The third Buddha, known as Kasyapa, appeared about k.c. iooo, 
 and then, e.g. 577, came Gautama Buddha, the Prince of Lucknow. 
 
 Since then, successive kings and nobles have come here from far 
 distant lands on solemn pilgrimage, and many a picturesque company 
 (some robed in all the gorgeousness of Oriental splendour) has wended 
 its way from the coast through the dense beast-haunted forests which 
 clothed these wild mountain-ranges, to toil up these self-same rock- 
 hewn steps since, in the year a.d. 24, Meghavahana, king of Cashmere 
 came all the way hither to worship on this summit. 
 
 That the kings of Ceylon should be numbered amongst the 
 pilgrims is only natural, though doubtless it was a notable event that 
 they should make the journey on foot, as did the great Buddhist king, 
 Prakrama Bahu I., who, about a.d. 1153, 'caused a temple to be 
 erected on the summit of Samanala ' (so it is stated in the Rajavali). 
 
 Thus, through each successive age, has the ceaseless offering of 
 prayer and praise ascended from this majestic mountain-altar to the 
 great All-Father, whose tender mercy enfolds all His children, albeit 
 so many can but feel after Him through the blinding mists of 
 heathenism. But we, who know His all-enfolding love, and grieve 
 to see these weary ones pleading with ' unknown gods,' can but echo 
 the hope of him who wrote : 
 
 What if to TuEE in Thine Infinity 
 
 These multiform and many-coloured creeds 
 
 .Seem but the robe man wraps as masquer's weeds 
 
 Round the one living truth Tiiou givest him — TllEE ? 
 
 Wliat if these varied forms that worship prove 
 
 (Being heart-worship) reach Thy perfect ear 
 
 But as a monotone, complete and clear, 
 
 Of which the music is (through Christ's Name) Love? 
 
 Fcr ever rising in suljlimc increase 
 
 To ' Glory in the Highest — on Earth peace.' 
 
 N N 2
 
 548 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 CIIAl'TER XXVI 
 
 THE TUG OF WAR— THE liATTLE OF DIVERSE CREEDS IN CEYLON 
 
 Nestorian Christians — St. Francis Xavier— Portuguese — butch — Table of British 
 Missionaries— Roman Catholic — American Mission— Need of a Medical Mission 
 for Women — Jaffna College— High-casle students — Commencement of W'eslcyan 
 Mission — Its Mission to Burmah. 
 
 I duuht whether in any other corner of the earth so small an area 
 has proved the battle-field for creeds so diverse as those which have 
 successively striven for the mastery in Ceylon. Certainly there is 
 none in which successive mercenary invaders, whether heathen or 
 Christian, have more unscrupulously used the cloak of religion as a 
 political engine for the furtherance of their own designs, or with more 
 lamentable results. 
 
 This fair Isle, somewhat smaller than Ireland, has for centuries 
 been distracted by religious and political conflicts, subject to the 
 caprice of successive rulers of diverse race and faith, each imposing 
 its own secular and spiritual government on the conquered islanders, 
 and all alike unstable. From the days when pure, cold, atheistic 
 Buddhism first sought (quite ineffectually) to drive out the devil- 
 worship which prevails to this day, and through Hindoo and Malay 
 invasions, bringing alternate waves of polytheism and monotheism, 
 till Portuguese and Dutch conquerors came, each in turn determined 
 to enforce their own creed, the people have been subject to such 
 conflicting teaching, that to a very great extext all these faiths have 
 partly blended and partly neutralised one another. 
 
 At the present day, although out of a population of somewhat 
 over 3,000,000, 1,800,000 are professedly Buddhists, 630,000 are 
 Hindoo.s, 220,000 are Mahommedans, and, according to the latest 
 census, 283,000 are Christians, the great mass of these people are 
 still in the thraldom of the aboriginal devil worship, which is a system 
 of ceaseless propitiation of malignant spirits. 
 
 As regards the effect on the Christianity of the Isle, it is evident 
 that creeds enforced by conquerors could not fail to be odious in the 
 eyes of the people. As to winning their hearts, that was never 
 attempted until the present century, unless, perhaps, in very early 
 days when Christianity was introduced from Persia by Nestorian 
 missionaries. Of this mention is made by Cosmas, a Nestorian
 
 THE TUG OF WAR 549 
 
 Christian, who, writing in the time of Justinian, tells that in Taprobane 
 (which w\is the ancient Greek name for Ceylon) there existed a com- 
 munity of Persian Christians, tended by bishops, priests, and deacons, 
 and having a regular liturgy. 
 
 These are understood to have been merchants attracted by com- 
 merce to this Isle of gems, ivory, and precious timber, which was 
 then the great emporium of Oriental trade. They are supposed to 
 have established their headquarters on the shores of the Gulf of 
 Manaar, but by the close of the sixth century Eastern trade seems to 
 have languished, the Persian merchants no longer frequented the Isle, 
 and no more is heard of these Persian colonists. Their influence, 
 however, remained, for when Sir John Mandeville visited the North- 
 "NVest Province in the fourteenth century, he states that he there found 
 'good men and reasonable, and many Christian men amongst them.' 
 
 Some lingering trace of their teaching doubtless predisposed the 
 Tamil natives of that district to the Christian faith, for when ' St. 
 Francis Xavier (like his Master preaching to the fishers on the Lake 
 of Galilee) made his earliest proselytes among the fisher-folk of Cape 
 Comorin, those of Manaar sent him an invitation to come and teach 
 them also. Though unable to go in person, he sent one of his 
 clergy, through whom about seven hundred received baptism — a 
 baptism which was straightway crowned by martyrdom, as these 
 early converts were forthwith put to death by the Rajah of Jaffna, 
 who was a worshipper of Siva. This martyrdom was followed by the 
 usual results, for ere long the sons and other relations of the persecu- 
 ting ruler embraced the Christian faith and fled for protection to the 
 mainland, to the court of the Christian Viceroy of Goa. 
 
 Soon afterward the Rajah himself, terrified by the encroachments 
 of the Portuguese, declared himself a convert, and induced St. 
 Francis to secure for him a political alliance with these irresistible 
 invaders, who accordingly established a sort of protectorate in his 
 realm, which soon resulted in the assertion of absolute power and 
 the expulsion of the tyrant from his dominions. 
 
 To this day the majority of the Singhalese and Tamil fishers are 
 members of the Roman Catholic Church, and members, moreover, 
 who pay their tithes in so liberal a fashion, that, when in 1840 the 
 British Government abolished the tax on fish, which had previously 
 been an item of revenue equivalent to about ;^6,ooo per annum, the 
 fishers simply transferred their payment to the priests, by whom it 
 
 ' A.n. is-i-i.
 
 550 TJVO HAPrV YEARS IX CFA'LON 
 
 has thenceforth been collected. The Portuguese seem to have 
 discovered the island by accident, while pursuing trading vessels. 
 They found Moorish ships laden with cinnamon and elephants, and 
 straightway their covetousness was awakened. They found a people 
 weakened by dissensions, amongst whom they came in threefold 
 character, as merchants, missionaries, and pirates. They craved an 
 inch, they quickly took an ell, and in truth a knell they sounded 
 throughout the weary land. 
 
 So soon as they obtained possession of Colombo and the adjoin- 
 ing districts (a.d. 1505), Don Juan de Monterio was consecrated first 
 Roman Catholic Bishop of Ceylon, and every effort was made to 
 induce the Singhalese to declare themselves converts. So great was 
 the official pressure, enforced by the indescribably brutal cruelty of 
 fanatical soldiers, that multitudes yielded and submitted to baptism. 
 Amongst these nominal converts were the kings of Kandy and of 
 Cotta, but this was not till the former had been driven from his 
 throne, and the latter compelled to seek the aid of the Portuguese to 
 retain his kingdom. The example of their kings was followed by 
 many of the nobles, who carried compliance so far as to adopt the 
 names of the Portuguese nobles who stood sponsors at the holy font 
 —a circumstance of which we find a curious survival at the present 
 day in the Portuguese Christian names combined with native 
 surnames borne by so many of the people of pure blood, such as 
 Gregory de Soyza Wijeyegooneratne Siriwardene, Don David de Silva 
 Welaratne Jayetilleke,y^V/(7;/ Louis Po-era Abeysekere Goonewardene, 
 &c. 
 
 Although the influence of Portuguese gold, the hope of ofiicial 
 honours, and the dread of barbarous torture combined to produce a 
 general outward conformity, it stands to reason that the majority of 
 the people continued secretly attached to the Buddhist and Brahman 
 faiths ; and so great were the concessions made by the Roman 
 Catholic teachers in the way of assimilation as to call forth serious 
 remonstrance from some of the stricter Orders. 
 
 Thus matters continued till, in the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century, the Dutch obtained the upper hand in the struggle for 
 supremacy, and in a.d. 1642 they proclaimed the Reformed Church 
 of Holland to be the established religion of the Isle. Then followed 
 a period of most cruel persecution. Many of the Portuguese priests 
 were deported to India, one was beheaded, all were insulted and op- 
 pressed, as were also the native Roman Catholics, many of whom,
 
 THE TUG OF WAR 551 
 
 however, had now become so thoroughly in earnest that no amount 
 of persecution could make them abjure their faith. These were 
 Singhalese, Tamils, and descendants of the Portuguese. 
 
 By way of exhibiting their superiority to childish reverence for 
 images, the Dutch indulged in such unworthy diversions as mutilating 
 the sacred figures in the churches, especially that of St. Thomas, the 
 patron saint of the Isle, into which they knocked great nails, and 
 then shot it from a mortar right into the Portuguese quarters. Thus 
 Christianity was presented to the islanders solely as the ground for 
 bitter contentions between these two bodies of those professing it. 
 The Portuguese persuasives having been the sword, the stake, and 
 the spear, the Dutch tried bribery. Government office, and emolument 
 of various kinds. 
 
 In curious contrast with their contemptible sacrifice of Christianity 
 to trade in Japan, the Dutch here set to work with a high hand to 
 establish the Reformed Faith. Issuing stringent penal proclamations 
 against the celebration of mass and every other office of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, they took possession of the churches, established 
 Reformed schools, and by the close of the seventeenth century they 
 reckoned their nominal adherents among the Tamil population in the 
 north of the Isle at about 190,000. Nevertheless, Baldceus, one of 
 the earliest Dutch missionaries, who in 1663 records this triumph, 
 has to confess that, though Christian in name, they retained many of 
 the superstitions of their Hindoo paganism. 
 
 But the Singhalese of the Southern District were by no means so 
 ready to adopt another new creed at the bidding of strangers ; so to 
 quicken their intelligence, proclamations were issued to the effect that 
 no native who had not been admitted by baptism into the Protestant 
 Church could hold any office under Government, or even be allowed 
 to farm land. Of course, upon this there was no limit to the num- 
 bers who pressed forward to submit to the test thus sacrilegiously 
 imposed, Brahmans claiming their right to do so without even laying 
 aside the outward symbols of their heathen worship. 
 
 And no wonder that they assumed the test to be merely an ex- 
 ternal form, when in a.d. 1707 they saw the Dutch actually securing 
 peace with the Kandyan king by a loan of ships to convey messengers 
 to Arracan, thence to bring Buddhist priests of sufficiently high 
 ecclesiastical rank to restore the Upasampada order in Ceylon and 
 reinstate Buddhism, which had fallen into decay during the long- 
 continued wars,
 
 552 TWO HAPPy YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 The Dutch, however, had every intention of really educating the 
 people to an understanding of Christian doctrine, so free schools were 
 established everywhere throughout the maritime provinces over which 
 they held sway, and attendance was made compulsory and enforced 
 by a system of fines. The natives made no objection to sending their 
 boys, but that girls should be compelled to attend in public was then 
 deemed scandalous. 
 
 Even under the pressure of the new edict, the southern Buddhist 
 districts never yielded half so many nominal converts as did the 
 Hindoo population in the north. There was nothing in the prosaic 
 forms of Dutch Presbyterianism which appealed to their imagination. 
 But the Church of Rome received a fresh impetus from the fervent 
 preaching of Father Joseph Vaz, of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri at 
 Goa, who (protected by the reinstated Christian king of Kandy, who 
 backed his advocacy by the persecution and imprisonment of non- 
 compliant subjects) gained 30,000 converts from the ranks of those 
 who had hitherto continued staunch Buddhists. 
 
 The Roman Catholics had now resumed worship in four hundred 
 churches throughout the Isle, and the Dutch deemed it necessary to 
 reassert themselves by issuing fresh penal laws, resulting in bitter 
 contentions between these two bodies of the Christian Church, while 
 all the time heathenism continued rampant, the Dutch themselves 
 declaring that multitudes of their nominal adherents were incorrigible 
 Buddhists, who regulated every act of life by the teaching of astro- 
 logers, always calling in the aid of devil-dancers, rather than that of 
 the clergy, wearing heathen charms, and making offerings in the idol- 
 temples. 
 
 But the penal laws which subjected Roman Catholics to all 
 possible civil disabilities, and even refused to recognise marriage by 
 a priest as valid, continued in force till 1806, when they were re- 
 pealed by the British Government, and religious liberty established. 
 At the present day scarcely a trace remains of the influence of Dutch 
 Presbyterianism, whereas the numerous descendants of the Portuguese 
 converts continue to be devout members of the Roman Catholic 
 Church (combined, however, with much of the grossest superstition 
 of their heathen neighbours). A very debased form of the Portu- 
 guese language is also extensively spoken, and, in fact, was till recently 
 in common use amongst all the mixed races, whereas the Dutch 
 language has entirely died out. 
 
 That the Dqtch Chnrcli, sq forcibly established, should have failecj
 
 THE TUG OF WAR 553 
 
 to obtain any real footing in the hearts of the nominal converts is no 
 wonder, inasmuch as their clergy would not even take the trouble to 
 master the language of the people, but taught through interpreters. 
 In 1747 there remained in all the Isle only five ministers of the 
 Reformed Church, and only one of these could even understand the 
 language. 
 
 After this, however, they were ably assisted by Schwartz and 
 other members of the Danish Mission at Tranquebar, who undertook 
 to train young men for the ministry in Ceylon. But a Church which 
 was so entirely built up on a Ijasis of political bribery and coercion 
 could not stand when these incentives were removed, and so 
 this outwardly imposing Dutch Church has faded away like a 
 dream. 
 
 For some time, however, after the British annexation of Ceylon, 
 Dutch Presbyterianism was recognised as the Established Church of 
 the colony, and Mr. North (the first British Governor, afterwards 
 Dord Guildford) not only took active measures for restoring 170 of 
 the Dutch village-schools all over the island, but also offered Govern- 
 ment assistance to the clergy if they would itinerate through the rural 
 districts, and so keep alive some knowledge of the Christian faith. 
 
 How little the Home Government cared about the matter was 
 proved by the refusal to sanction the sum expended by Mr. North on 
 the schools, which accordingly had to be considerably reduced — a 
 parsimony which was deemed grievously out of keeping with the high 
 salaries granted in other departments. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, seeing the interest thus taken in the matter 
 by their new rulers, and expecting that religious profession and 
 political reward would continue to go hand in hand, the number of 
 the nominal converts, both Roman Catholic and Presbyterian, in- 
 creased rapidly, but only to be followed by wholesale apostasy so soon 
 as they realised that their creed was a matter of absolute indifference 
 to their official superiors. Thus, whereas in a. n. 1801 no less than 
 342,000 Singhalese professed the Protestant faith, ten years later that 
 number was diminished by one half, the rest having returned to the 
 worship of Buddha ! 
 
 Likewise in the northern districts, where in a.d. 1802 upwards of 
 136,000 of the Tamil i^opulation were nominal Presbyterians, the 
 cloak of ' Government religion ' was thrown off so rapidly, that, four 
 years later, the fine old churches were described by Buchanan as 
 having been abandoned, and left to go to ruin, the Protestant religion
 
 554 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 being extinct, and the congregations having all returned either to the 
 Church of Rome or to the worship of the Hindoo gods. The clergy 
 of the Presbyterian Church had left a district where they were as 
 shepherds without sheep. Only one I'amil catechist remained in 
 charge of the whole province of Jaffna, while priests from the Roman 
 Catholic college at Coa divided the field with the reinstated Brah- 
 nians. 
 
 So feebly rooted was this Dutch Christianity, that there was reason 
 to fear that those who continued to profess the ' Government religion 
 were really those who cared least about any faith ; and though they 
 and their descendants have ever been willing to bring their children 
 to holy baptism, the very term which describes that sacrament, 
 ' Kill aw a denowa,' 'admission to rank,' recalls the notion of secular 
 advantage which it conveys to their minds. 
 
 Of course, a country in which religion had been thus misused 
 ])resented the most disheartening of mission-fields. Nevertheless, in 
 the beginning of the present century, the London Mission, the 
 Wesleyans, and the Baptists each sent representatives to try what 
 could be done ; but their early efforts seemed to themselves altogether 
 without fruit. 'J'he Church of England likewise sent chaplains to 
 minister to the British settlers.^ About the same time the American 
 Board of Foreign Missions sent its emissaries to commence work at 
 Madras. On their way thither their vessel was wrecked off the north- 
 west of Ceylon. This they accepted as an indication of the Divine 
 will that they were to go no forther. They accordingly established 
 themselves at Jaffna, which was then a very different place from the 
 civilised town and province of the present day, with gardens and lawn- 
 tennis grounds, its network of first-class roads and travelling facilities. 
 At that time there were no roads, only footpaths over heavy sand, 
 which in the rainy season became impassable. The salt lagoon 
 
 ' I iiinv lu-re quote Mr. Ferguson's Chronological Table of Missions in Ceylon : — 
 
 A.I). 1505. Portuguese visit Ceylon. 
 
 — 154^. Roman Catholicism first preached at Manaar. 
 
 — 1642. Dutch Presbyterian Ministry commencer . 
 
 — 1740. .Arrival of Moravian Missionaries. 
 
 — 1804. .Arrival of London Missionaries. 
 
 — 18 12. Baptist Mission commenced. 
 
 — 1814. Wcsleyan Mission commenced. 
 
 — 1816. .American Mission commenced. 
 
 — 1818. .Arrival of Church Missionaries (C. M.S.). 
 
 — 1840. Arrival of Church Missionaries (S.P.G.). 
 
 — 1854. Tamil Coolie Mission commenced,
 
 THE TUG OF WAR 555 
 
 was not bridged, and the only means of travel was by canoe and 
 palanquin. Bullock-carts were unknown luxuries, and where vast 
 cocoa and palmyra-palm plantations now flourish, all was gloomy 
 jungle, haunted by innumerable leopards, black bears, and other 
 dangerous foes. Packs of jackals infested the suburbs, making night 
 hideous with their cries, troops of monkeys and large grey wanderoos 
 boldly stripped the gardens, while gangs of robbers kept all honest 
 folk in terror. 
 
 At this very uninviting spot the shipwrecked Americans took up 
 their quarters near the old Dutch fort, and devoted all their energies 
 to the evangelising of the Tamil population — an effort which has 
 been carried on without ceasing up to the present time with very 
 marked success. 
 
 These pioneers were closely followed by the English Church 
 Missionary Society, whose first messengers commenced work at 
 Nellore, in the immediate neighbourhood of Jaffna, and there studied, 
 taught, and preached for twelve weary years ere their patience was 
 rewarded by making a single convert. Ere that year closed, however, 
 a little band of ten had renounced idolatry, and formed the nucleus 
 of the future Church, which, from that small beginning, has very 
 slowly but steadily developed, and has now just attained that stage of 
 vitality when a Church begins to recognise its own responsibility to-- 
 wards its heathen neighbours — a conviction which inevitably results in 
 self-extension. 
 
 Of course, mission work was now commenced on an entirely new 
 footing. So far from aiming at wholesale conversions, all inquirers 
 were henceforth individually subjected to most searching probation, 
 and a rigid standard of character has been maintained, with the result 
 that, though the recognised adherents of each Mission are com- 
 paratively few, they are of true stuff, and many are of the kind which 
 seeks to win others. 
 
 Thus the position of Ceylon in regard to Christian missions is that 
 of a canvas on which successive artists have tried their skill, each 
 striving to obliterate the work of his predecessors, resulting in an 
 undertone of heavy neutral tint ; whereon, at the present moment, 
 many draughtsmen are simultaneously endeavouring to work out a 
 Christian design, although sorely at variance concerning the detail 
 and colour of its several i)arts. 
 
 The various Protestant sects do indeed seek to work in harmony, 
 though, of course, their differences must sorely perplex the heathen who
 
 556 Tiro //,}/'/']' ]-EARS L\ CEYLON 
 
 is half inclined to forsake his ancestral faith. IJut reckoning all to- 
 gether, ICpiscopalians, ^V'esleyans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, 
 and Baptists, these, even according to the census, only constitute a 
 total of about 70,000, and of these only about 35,000 are recognised 
 adherents of any Protestant mission. Here, as in India, many who 
 would be no credit to any creed can assume the name for their own 
 ends. 'l"he Roman Catholics, who are content to acknowledge very 
 nominal conversions, reckon their co-religionists at upwards of 2 1 2,000 
 but a very large number of these are Christians solely in name, de- 
 scendants of converts of bygone generations, and absolutely ignorant 
 of even the distinctive outlines of Christian faith. 
 
 Of these two great branches of the Church Catholic, it can 
 certainly not be said that they are working in union in their Master's 
 cause, but never does their estrangement appear so grievous as when 
 thus displayed in presence of an overwhelming majority of the 
 heathen, whom each seek to lead to the same Saviour — at least we 
 would flxin believe that such is the object of the whole Catholic 
 Church, though practically even the largest charity must admit that a 
 vast number of the Roman Catholic converts merely exchange one 
 idolatry for another. I have already mentioned having myself seen, 
 in one small chapel the image of Buddha on one side and that of the 
 Blessed Virgin on the other, receiving divided worship ; and as to the 
 processions in the Tamil districts, it is scarcely possible to distinguish 
 those of so-called Christian images from those of the Hindoo gods 
 (which are worshipped alike by IJuddhists and Tamils), to say 
 nothing of the fact that each are escorted by companies of riotous 
 devil-dancers and truly diabolical musicians, both hired from heathen 
 temples. 
 
 But even a most orthodox Roman Catholic festival is startling 
 when considered a.s a legitimate feature in the worship of One who 
 has revealed himself as ' a jealous Cod,' saying, 'My glory will I 
 not give to another, neither My praise to graven images.' Here, 
 for instance, is an account of the Midsummer jjilgrimage of our 
 Lady of Maddu as described by the 'Jaffna Catholic Guardian ' in 
 1884 :^ 
 
 The annual festival of this celebrated sanctuary was solemnised with the 
 customary pomp, fervour, and devotion. As the fame of this holy spot spreads, 
 so does the nundjer of pilgrims increase from year to year. This year the number 
 assembled on the festival day was calculated to be between fifteen and twenty 
 thousand. Vet the order and quiet that reigned throughout the time the festival
 
 THE TUG OF V/AR S5? 
 
 lasted was simply admirable. The cheerfulness and resignation of the people 
 amidst the discomforts and privations of a jungle life, far away from any human 
 habitation, atid especially in a place w/tere water is scarce, was a source of edifica- 
 tion to everyone. Nothing could be more touching than to see the pious fervour 
 with which the pilgrims, l>oth Catholics and Hindoos, Buddhists and Aloors, from 
 early dawn till late in the night, flocked around the altar of our Holy Mother to 
 thank her for favours received, and to supplicate her for the grace they stood in 
 need of. The temporary church could not contain the crowds that gathered at the 
 morning and evening services. 
 
 The mixed multitude of pilgrims here represented as worhsippers 
 at the shrine of the Blessed Virgin is certainly remarkable. 
 
 Perhaps we need scarcely wonder that the Protestant catechists, 
 who insist on a radical change of creed, sometimes meet wnth more 
 serious opposition from the Roman Catholic priests than from the 
 heathen. For instance, a catechist was recently selling books and 
 tracts from village to village in the Negombo district. The purchasers 
 included sundry Roman Catholics, who in that neighbourhood are 
 numerous. One of these invited the catechist to bring his books to 
 the verandah of his house, and sent a private intimation to the priest, 
 who in the course of a (tw minutes arrived, angrily denouncing the 
 sale of such pernicious literature. The catechist vainly pointed out 
 that the books he was selling were all the simplest teaching about 
 jesus addressed to Buddhists, but the irate priest refused to hear him, 
 and informing him that he had already collected and burnt more than 
 a hundred of the bocks sold in other villages, he confiscated the 
 whole remaining stock. Reckoning the prices marked on those for 
 sale, he paid down the money, but appropriated all that were for 
 gratuitous circulation, and, notwithstanding the protestations of their 
 owner, he carried off the whole lot to burn them. During this scene 
 a crowd of Romanists gathered round, and were worked up to such 
 excitement, that the catechist was thankful to escape from the village 
 without personal injury. 
 
 Of the three races whom both Catholics and Protestants seek to 
 influence, i.e., the Singhalese, Tamils, and Moormen, the most satis- 
 factory mission results have been obtained amongst the Tamils of the 
 Northern Province, Jaffna, as I have already stated, having long been 
 the headcjuarters of the American Congregational Mission, as also of 
 a Church of England and a Wesleyan branch, all, happily, proving 
 their love to one Master by working in sympathy, shoulder to shoulder, 
 as beseems loyal soldiers of the Grand Army, who arc too deeply
 
 55S nvo HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLOX 
 
 engrossed in a real war with dark idolatry to contend over small dif- 
 ferences of regimental uniform. 
 
 Each of these missions has its own schools and chapels, scattered 
 over the many villages of the surrounding districts. The most notable 
 feature in all three is the recent recognition of the tremendously 
 antagonistic power of the heathen wives and mothers, ' the backbone 
 of the nation,' whom it is always so ditficult to reach on account of 
 Oriental customs of feminine seclusion ; not that these are by any 
 means so stringent in Ceylon as on the mainland. So a great effort 
 is now being made by each of these missions to establish schools, and 
 especially boarding-schools for girls, and in every possible way to win 
 the women. 
 
 This effort was indeed commenced at the very beginning of the 
 American Mission, when it was found that Tamil parents were 
 willing to send their boys to school, but declared that it was absurd 
 to send girls, as they could no more learn than sheep ! One day, 
 however, a heavy tropical rainstorm came on so suddenly that two 
 little girls sought shelter in the mission-house. As the storm continued 
 they could not leave till evening, and they were hungry and began to 
 cry. The missionary lady gave them bread and bananas, and the 
 younger sister ate, but the elder refused. 
 
 Presently their parents came to seek for them, and when they 
 learnt that the youngest had eaten bread prepared by anyone not of 
 their own caste (worst of all by a foreigner), they were very angry, 
 and declared that the child was polluted, and that they would be 
 unable to arrange a suitable marriage for her. They were in sore 
 perplexity, but decided that the lady had better keep the child and 
 bring it up. 
 
 To this she gladly agreed, and the little one was soon quite at 
 home. Her new friend sprinkled sand on the floor of the verandah, 
 and thereon wrote the 247 letters of the Tamil alphabet, a few every 
 day, till her young pupil could write them all herself. Some little 
 Tamil playmates came to see her, and were so delighted with this 
 new game that they came again and again, and very soon they were all 
 able to read, to their own great delight and the surprise of their parents. 
 
 Seeing how happy and well-cared for the first little girl was, other 
 parents consented to intrust their children to the foreign lady, and 
 thus in 1824 commenced the Oodooville (or, as now spelt, Uduvil) 
 Girls' Boarding School, probably the earliest effort of the sort in a 
 heathen land.
 
 THE TUG OF WAR S59 
 
 (I may remark in passing, that in 1887 several girls in the Oodooville 
 training school passed far ahead of any of the boys, a circumstance 
 which proved quite a shock to the Tamil believers in feminine inca- 
 pacity for intellectual studies ! ) 
 
 This school grew to very great importance under the care of Miss 
 Eliza Agnew, ' the mother of a thousand daughters,' as she was 
 lovingly called by the people. When herself a child only eight years 
 of age, at home in New York, her school-teacher, in giving a 
 geography lesson to her class, pointed out the large proportion of the 
 world which is still heathen. Then and there one little pupil resolved 
 that, if God would allow her, she would go and teach some of these 
 to love her Saviour. 
 
 Domestic duties tied her to her home till she was a woman of 
 thirty, when the death of her only near relations left her free to follow 
 her early impulse, and she was allowed to join the newly-established 
 American Mission at Jaffna. There she worked without intermission 
 for forty-three years, loved and loving, and teaching successive 
 generations, the children, and even some grandchildren, of her first 
 pupils. Upwards of a thousand girls studied under her care, and 
 of these more than six hundred left the school as really earnest 
 Christians. 
 
 These became the wives of catechists, teachers, native pastors, 
 lawyers. Government officials, and other leading men in the Jaffna 
 peninsula, so that the influence exerted by this one devoted Christian 
 woman has been beyond calculation. Hundreds of these families 
 attended her funeral, sorrowing as for no earthly mother. 
 
 The two sisters who told me these details, and who themselves 
 carried on her w^ork and tended her last hours, added : ' In hundreds 
 of villages in Ceylon and India there is just such a w^ork waiting to 
 be done by Christian young women as that which, with God's 
 blessing. Miss Agnew accomplished in the Jaffna peninsula. Heathen 
 lands are open to-day as they have never been open before; the 
 stronghold of heathenism is in the homes. It is the women who are 
 teaching the children to perform the heathen ceremonies, to sing the 
 songs in praise of the heathen gods, and thus they are moulding the 
 habits of thought of the coming generation. If we are to win the 
 world for Christ, we must lay our hands on the hands that rock the 
 cradles, and teach Christian songs to the lips that sing the lullabies ; 
 and if we can win the mothers to Christ, the jc;//i- will soon be brought 
 to fall at the feet of their Redeemer.
 
 S6(5 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 ' Zenanas, which forty years ago were locked and barred, are to- 
 day open. We have been told by Hindoo gentlemen that there are 
 many educated men in India to-day who are convinced of the truth 
 of (Christianity, and would confess Clirist, were it not that a wife or 
 mother, who has never been instructed about Him, would bitterly 
 oppose their doing so.' 
 
 They added that in India alone there are 120,000,000 women 
 and girls; that in (Ireat Britain alone there are about 1,000,000 more 
 women than men, and yet the total number of women who have as 
 yet volunteered for this honourable work in India, counting all in 
 connection with every Protestant Missionary Society, is barely 500; 
 and knowing from full personal experience the gladness of life and 
 fortune consecrated to this grand cause, they ask, ' Cannot many 
 more women be spared from their homes, and cannot more go who 
 are possessed of private means, and here realise how satisfying is this 
 life-work ? ' • 
 
 From their own personal knowledge of pitiful cases of the terrible 
 suffering of women, owing to the total lack of the very simplest 
 medical skill, and to the barbarous system of so-called 'sick-nursing' 
 (which makes one marvel how sick persons ever survive), these ladies 
 specially plead for trained medical women to come to the aid of 
 their sisters in Ceylon and India. But on this subject I cannot do 
 better than quote part of a letter from Dr. Chapman, a native 
 Christian doctor at Jaffna, who, speaking of the need for a Medical 
 Mission for Women in Ceylon, says : — 
 
 A favourite prescription is a pill made of croton seed. One pill will act, 
 perhaps, forty times ! The stronger the pill is the better, so they think. Some- 
 times one pill is enough to kill a person. Two cases of such mistreatment, and 
 death from that cause alone, happened recently to two Christian women, both of 
 whom were teachers in mission-schools. 
 
 He also writes at some considerable length about the heathen 
 doctors not allowing their patients water or sufficient food, and 
 speaks of many cases of death simply from starvation. 
 
 Speaking of barbarous native customs in regard to child-birth, he 
 says : — 
 
 A few days ago I was asked to go to a house where a woman was being 
 confined. The woman was tied to the roof of the house by a rough rope and kept 
 
 1 For most interesting details of the work of these two sisters, see ' Seven Years in 
 Ceylon,' by Mary and Margaret Leitch. Published by S. W. Partridge and Co. 
 Price 2.f. 6i/. , post free.
 
 THE TUG OF WAR 561 
 
 standing upon her knees. She was also supported by other native women. The 
 room was very small, and as no ventilation was allowed, was very hot. The poor 
 woman and her friends were in profuse perspiration. She was held up in this 
 position three days and hvo nights. She was not allowed to rest or lie down at 
 all. The friends of the woman, who were holding her up, took turns with each 
 other and rested themselves, but the poor woman had no one to change with. 
 
 When I reached the house, her limbs were cold, and she was not able to hold 
 up her head, and was fast sinking. I ordered that they should take her down 
 and let her lie on the ground, and that they should give her brandy and ammonia. 
 ... I did everything in my power to save her, but she died the following night. 
 In all stuh cases of confinement the luomen are held up in this standin"- 
 posture for days and nights until the child is horn or the woman dies. The reason 
 of this great superstition, among the poor and the rich, among the educated and 
 uneducated, among the Christians and heathen, all alike, is that they think 
 gravitation will assist the mother in the birth of the child. By thus being held up 
 for days without rest or food, the mother loses her whole strength, and, in many 
 instances, becomes unable to bring forth her babe. 
 
 However, if a child is born, the mother is taken to another room and is 
 bathed, that is to say, she is laid on a cold mud floor and cold water is dashed all 
 over her till she is thoroughly chilled. This is immediately done with all possible 
 haste, without letting the mother rest a moment, of course causing a fearful shock 
 to the system. 
 
 If she escapes this crisis, she is laid on a mat, and a strongly-spiced paste is 
 given her to eat, which is made of pepper, garlic, and ginger. Nothing else is 
 given her for three days. No water is given. On the fourth day rice is given, 
 with hot spices and dried fish. She is daily bathed in hot water ; spices and oil 
 are freely given her to eat ; not a drop of water is she allowed to drink. The 
 mother is allowed to nurse the child only on the fifth day. Every woman must 
 get fever on the fifth day. Fever is good, they think. Before the fifth day the 
 child is fed with some decoction. 
 
 The population of the province is about 316,000, and taking the birth-rate 
 at 3 per cent., there must be some 9,480 births every year, and yet there are no 
 trained midwives to assist in such cases. 
 
 The fact that this doctor was only called after the woman had 
 been tied up to the roof of the house for three days and two nights, 
 and when it was too late for him to render any aid, shows the extreme 
 reluctance of the people to call for the help of a male doctor at such 
 times. 
 
 Miss Lcitch tells me that in such cases she has gone into homes 
 where the poor exhausted woman was lying shivering on a cold mat, 
 and literally dying for want of a warm drink, while the house has 
 been crowded with relatives bewailing as for one already dead, By 
 turning them all out and applying needful warmth, she has had the 
 happiness of seeing the poor mother recover, but knew that; however 
 
 o o
 
 562 TIVO HAPPY YF.ARS IN CEYLON 
 
 exhausted she herself might be, she dared not leave the house, as all 
 the relatives would at once return, and [)andenionium would again 
 surround the sick-bed. In many houses devil-dancers are called 
 in to exorcise the evil spirits supposed to be present, and the 
 wretched patient is distracted by the beating of torn toms for hours at 
 a time. 
 
 Here, then, is one grand field of work for Christian women, as 
 yet wholly unoccupied, and assuredly, of all phases of work, is that 
 which most closely assimilates to His, the merciful Master, Who 
 won men's hearts by healing all manner of sickness and disease. 
 
 A very important step was taken this year when Ur. Kynsey, the 
 principal medical officer of Ceylon, sought the Governor's sanction 
 for the admission of female students into the Medical College at 
 Colombo, there to be trained as doctors for their countrywomen. 
 The College will be open to them from May i, 1892, when they 
 will attend the same lectures as male students, but have separate 
 class-rooms for anatomy, their studies being directed by Mrs. Van 
 Ingen, a fully qualified lady-doctor, herself trained in the Indian 
 Medical School for Women, founded by Lady Dufferin in 1885. 
 
 That great scheme has already resulted in the establishment of 
 thirty-eight hospitals specially for women, with forty lady- doctors, 
 while 204 female students are now being educated to aid the suffer- 
 ing women of India. 
 
 Scholarships and other inducements will be offered to attract 
 students in Ceylon ; and, as in India, the scheme will be worked on 
 entirely unsectarian lines, no attempt being made to influence the 
 religion of either students or patients. 
 
 It is certainly much to be regretted that Christian medical missions 
 should have been unable to occupy this field, and secure so impor- 
 tant a means of influence, instead of its becoming an altogether 
 secular agency. 
 
 As regards the quiet extension of purely spiritual work, many of 
 the native Christian women now recognise the duty of trying to in- 
 fluence their heathen sisters by visiting them in their homes ; and 
 though such work implies very great effort on the part of those in 
 whom the second nature of custom has exaggerated natural timidity, 
 a considerable number are now doing excellent service as Bible- 
 women, even making their way in the wholly heathen villages. 
 
 Some of the Tamil women who have undertaken this good work 
 are the wives of Government officials, doctors, or lawyers, so that
 
 THE TUG OF WAR 563 
 
 their words are the more certain to carry weight with their country- 
 women, who invariably receive them with respect, and acknowledge 
 that only a strong conviction of religious duty, combined with a re- 
 markable love to their unknown neighbours, could possibly have in- 
 duced them to come forth from the privacy of their own homes. 
 This movement was commenced in Jaffna in 1868 by the Wesleyan 
 Mission, and was successfully adopted by the English Church and 
 American Missions there. The latter has upwards of forty of these 
 good pioneers now working in various parts of the peninsula. 
 
 From one district the superintendent writes : 'The Bible-readers 
 teach in the forenoon, and every at'ternoon go from village to village, 
 collecting the women and holding meetings. Thus twenty villages 
 are visited. The great interest of our work consists in the willingness 
 of the women of all classes to learn to read for themselves. There 
 are now in this district 373 women under instruction. One hundred 
 can now read the Bible, and all the rest are learning. The majority 
 of the women are of the Vellala or farmer caste. Last year we had 
 nine Brahman women, now we have twenty-two. Of other classes 
 we have a few from the barber, carpenter, washer, and tree-climber 
 {i.e., toddy-drawer) villages. Many of these attend the weekly meet- 
 ings of the " Helping Hand Society " for study and recitation.' 
 
 Another superintendent of ten Bible-women tells of their weekly 
 visits to 375 women in their respective village-homes. Each of these 
 women undertakes to learn by heart ' each week four verses of the 
 Bible and part of a hymn, the portions selected being those assigned 
 in the village day-schools, in order that the little girls, on their return 
 home in the evening, may thus become pupil-teachers, helping their 
 mothers and grown-up sisters to learn their lessons. In truth, the 
 story of the Mission records some very pathetic instances of how the 
 ewes follow the lambs—in other words, how the simple faith of little 
 children has resulted in the conversion of their parents. Of course, 
 the primary object of each visitor is to teach every woman to pray, 
 and they have reason to hope that a very large proportion of their 
 pupils do so, many having had the courage openly to confess their 
 conversion. 
 
 In addition to this house to-house visitation, these ten Bible- 
 women teach sewing to upward of 250 girls at twelve day-schoois ; 
 they also teach in the Sunday-schools, and otherwise make themselves 
 useful in arranging women's meetings. 
 
 - ' To memorise ' is the expressive .American abbreviation.
 
 564 TIFO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Similar reports, more or less encouraging, come from the other 
 districts, in one of which, at a meeting of heathen women, one told 
 how, fifty years ago, when quite a child, she had been for six months 
 at one of the Mission boarding-schools, when her parents removed 
 her in conse(iuence of an outbreak of whooping-cough, and she had 
 not been allowed to return. But those six months seemed to remain 
 in her memory as the one bright spot of life. 
 
 To some of the high-caste women, the fact that the Bible-women 
 are mostly of low caste is in itself an objection to submitting to their 
 teaching, which is only overcome by the ambition of learning to 
 read ; the fact, too, of having to sit on equal terms amongst pupils 
 who are also of low caste is at first a great barrier to women of the 
 higher castes attending any meeting. In many cases, however, this 
 difiiculty has been overcome, and a kindliness hitherto undreamt of 
 seems to herald the dawn of the faith which teaches unselfish loving- 
 kindness. 
 
 Remembering how the first girl was given to the care of the 
 missionaries, because, having eaten of their bread, she was polluted, 
 it is touching to hear now of an annual meeting at Batticotta of the 
 Native Missionary Society, at which upwards of a thousand commu- 
 nicants assemble, the native Christians of the town providing an 
 abundant meal of curry and rice for all visitors— a putting aside of 
 caste prejudices which is indeed a triumph of grace. 
 
 Formerly some heathen families who sent their daughters to the 
 mission-schools used to insist on elaborate ceremonial ablutions before 
 allowing them to re-enter their home in the evening ! 
 
 The regular work of the American Mission at Jaffna is carried on 
 by eleven native pastors and about sixty assistants, under the super- 
 vision of five married missionaries. Here, as in the Hawaian isles, 
 the venerable American missionaries, several of whom have here 
 toiled ceaselessly for half-a-century, are affectionately designated 
 ' Father ' of their flock. Thus the late much-loved Principal of the 
 College, Father Hastings, is succeeded in office by Father Howland. 
 Father and Mrs. Spaulding, and I think Father Smith, also each 
 gave upwards of fifty years' work to Jaffna, and have left sons and 
 daughters who follow in their steps. Ivich district has at least one 
 chapel, but great efforts are made to carry on systematic preaching in 
 as many villages as possible, and it is hoped that the numerous books, 
 Bibles, and portions of Scripture sold by colporteurs will prove 
 silent teachers in many homes. Not only all the schools, but also
 
 THE TUC OF WAR 565 
 
 the police-courts are found to be suitable preaching centres, on 
 account of the large number of people who generally congregate in 
 the neighbourhood. 
 
 It is also hoped that much good may result from the multiplica- 
 tion of what are called ' moonlight meetings,' which are informal 
 meetings in the homes of any of the people who care to call together 
 their friends and neighbours for religious discussion or instruction. 
 The workers of all denominations agree as to the advantage of 
 diligently prosecuting this system, which seems to find much favour 
 with the people, who in some districts assemble to the number 
 of several hundreds. In some of the Singhalese districts even 
 Buddhist priests sometimes attend these meetings in quite a friendly 
 spirit. 
 
 Naturally, however, this is not always the case, the zeal of the 
 Christian preachers sometimes awakening a corresponding energy in 
 the more rigid Buddhists. For instance, the marked success of the 
 moonlight meetings in the neighbourhood of Cotta, near Colombo, 
 induced the Buddhists to commence holding opposition services. 
 The majority of the people, however, refused to countenance these, 
 declaring that the Christians 'were only doing their own work and 
 trying to do good, and that to conimence such meetings simply out 
 of spite or envy showed a very bad spirit!' 
 
 As regards open-air preaching in the streets or other public 
 places, Buddhists and Christians being alike protected by the British 
 Government, have precisely the same liberty and security. 
 
 The total number of Church members in connection with the 
 American Congregational Mission is as yet only about 1,300, but the 
 attendants at public worship are about 7,000 ; and there is reason to 
 believe that a very much larger number arc converts at heart, 
 although the fear of domestic persecution, and the difficulties of 
 strict Sabbatical observance and of disposing of extra wives, prevent 
 many from professing themselves Christians. 
 
 One of the most remarkable Christian institutions in Ceylon is 
 the College for Tamils at Batticotta, in the Jaffna peninsula, which 
 originated in a purely spontaneous effort made in 1867 by the 
 native Christians in that district to secure for themselves and their 
 descendants a superior education both in English and Tamil. They 
 succeeded in raising 1,700/.— a large sum in a land where the wage 
 of a lal)ourer is but dd. a day. This nest-egg was supplemented by 
 6,000/. from America, and in 1872 the college was started under the
 
 566 7iro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 control of a board of directors. These are the Government Agent 
 of the Northern Province, eleven representatives of the native 
 Christian gentlemen of the community, and the senior missionaries 
 (jf the three Christian regiments which work in that province in such 
 admirable brotherly union, namely, the Church of England 
 Mission, and the American and Wksleyan Missions, all of whom 
 are in full sympathy with the work of this noble institution. 
 
 While the college is undenominational, it is essentially Christian, 
 and the form of worship adopted is Congregational. Not one 
 heathen teacher has ever been employed in it, and all students are 
 required to live on the premises, and are thus continuously under 
 strong Christian influence. 
 
 It might be supposed that Hindoo young men of high caste 
 would object to paying full price for board and lodging in a college 
 where a standing rule is that all inmates shall refrain from heathen 
 practices, and from wearing idolatrous marks on their foreheads ; but 
 so highly is the education prized, that no objection to these conditions 
 is ever made,^ and the Hindoo students not only eat, sleep, and live 
 with the Christians, but unite in the daily study of the Bible, and are 
 present at morning and evening prayers, the Sabbath-school, and 
 Church services of the American Mission. 
 
 This college takes no grant-in-aid from Covernment, and until 
 June 1 89 1 it was not atililiated to any university,- as experience 
 
 1 Perhaps I ought to say ' no objection by those really concerned.' In point of 
 fact, a party-cry of ' religious intolerance ' was raised a few years ago by certain wealthy 
 Hindoos, who, although ton indifferent to establish schools for themselves, made this 
 a ground of attack on missionaries, who rightly insist on all children who attend 
 Christian schools coming with clean faces, that is to say, without the temple marks of 
 cow-dung ash on their foreheads. 
 
 So many Europeans seem to think that they cannot yield sufiiciently courteous 
 recognition to heathen customs, that the strong words of Bishop Coplcston on this 
 question may well be remembered: 'It matters everything what we teach by. our 
 action to our heathen neighbours and to our Christian people. Let us teach that the 
 symbol of Siva — if it means anything but a dirty face — is an outrngeon the majesty and 
 love of the One True CJod, that it is what Scripture calls "an abomination," to be 
 abhorred by all loyal children of the One Father. And let us remind our own people 
 
 that THKRE IS SUCH A THING AS A SOUND AND TRULY RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE, 
 \\HICH IS NOT TOLERANT OF AFFRONTS TO OUR GOD ; WHICH WH.L NOT TREAT 
 AS ONE AMONG MANY FORMS OF RELIGION THE WORSHIP OF IDOLS AND THE 
 
 DENLVL OF OUR LoRD. . . . Our heathen neighbours will have reason to thank us 
 in the end, and in the meantime w ill respect us, if we are determined both to speak 
 and act the truth in love.' 
 
 - The directors state that the decision of Government to give up Cambridge and 
 introduce London has compelled them to affiliate the Jaffna College to that of Calcutta.
 
 THE TUG OF WAR 567 
 
 proves that students who are working for passes grudge the time 
 bestowed on Bibhcal study, which does not count in their examina- 
 tions. Naturally a college which recognises the training of Christian 
 catechists and schoolmasters as the primary object of its existence 
 prefers to be independent of a purely secular superior. 
 
 The result of this system has been that, out of about 350 students 
 who have been educated here, fully 150 have gone out into the 
 world as Christians and communicants, and are leading such 
 consistent lives as tend greatly to uphold the honour of their 
 faith. 
 
 In India, on the other hand, where in the Government schools 
 absolutely secular education is given, with entire disregard to religion 
 • — even Bible-reading being set aside — the statistics of the four 
 universities show that only between four and five per cent, of the 
 graduates are Christians ; the rest, for the most part, while learning 
 to despise heathenism, drift into agnosticism, and even atheism. 
 
 I cannot refrain from quoting a paragraph on this subject from a 
 non-Christian Bombay paper. The writer says : ' Education pro- 
 vided by the State simply destroys Hindooism ; it gives nothing in 
 its place. It is founded on the benevolent principle of non-inter- 
 ference with religion, but in practice it is the negation of God in life. 
 Education must destroy idolatry, and the Stnte education of India, 
 benevolent in its idea, practically teaches atheism. It leaves its 
 victims without any faith.' 
 
 This lamentable result, which is flooding India with a multitude 
 of highly-educated utter sceptics, was vividly brought home to the 
 Christian workers in Jaffna when they found the existing college totally 
 inadequate for the number of promising young men in the schools, 
 w^ho were consequently compelled to cross over to India, and there 
 seek the ' higher education ' in Government schools. 
 
 Many of these were apparently on the verge of professing them- 
 selves Christians, but after a course of two or three years in totally 
 heathen and grossly immoral surroundings, they invariably returned 
 cither as bitter heathen or atheists ; a state of matters all the more 
 distressing as they were in many cases betrothed to Christian girls in 
 the mission-schools. 
 
 It was evident that the Christian college at Jaffna must be placed 
 on such a footing as to enable it to meet this ever-increasing need. 
 A sum of 30,000/. was retiuired for its immcdialc extension, and it is 
 delightful to know that this has been almost raised by the efforts of
 
 568 Tiro HAPPY Y^ARS IN CEYLON 
 
 the two sisters of whom I have already spoken, and who came id 
 Britain and to America for this purpose. 
 
 There is every reason to believe that this college is destined to 
 fill a very important part in the evangelisation of India, for this reason, 
 namely, that a singularly large proportion of the Tamils resident on 
 the peninsula of Jaffna are of very high caste, and the 15,000 children 
 attending the Christian day-schools and the 2,500 communicants con- 
 nected with the three Missions are mostly of high caste. It is scarcely 
 possible for Europeans to realise how deeply ingrained in Hindoo 
 nature is the reverence for all members of the upper castes, however 
 poor they may be, and the natural tendency to look with contempt 
 on low-caste men. Now it so happens that in India the majority of 
 converts are of low caste, and these, as a general rule, are not only 
 intellectually inferior to the higher castes, but are generally too poor 
 to afford the highest course of education. Consequently, Brahman 
 teachers, whose caste secures unbounded reverence, are frequently 
 found even in the mission-colleges and high-schools, with the badge 
 of heathen gods on their foreheads, instructing the students in the 
 highest classes, while native Christian teachers take the lower subjects. 
 Possibly the native pastor who gives the Bible-lessons is by caste a 
 Pariah, and however excellent he may be, is, as such, despicable in 
 the eyes of the Hindoo student. 
 
 Thus the social barrier of caste enters even into the Mission 
 colleges, acting as a very serious drawback. Of course the various 
 Missions would gladly replace the Hindoo and Mahommedan teachers 
 by thoroughly educated and influential Christian men, could such be 
 procured. The Principal of the Lucknow High School alone states 
 that he would thankfully engage two hundred Christian teachers for 
 the schools of the American Mission in that district, were such avail- 
 able ; but as it is, heathen teachers are engaged of necessity. 
 
 Now in these respects Jaffna is very remarkably favoured, and is 
 apparently destined to become to Southern India what lona once was 
 to Scotland — the school for her teachers. It must be borne in mind 
 that Tamil is one of the four great Dravidian tongues, and is the 
 language of 13,000,000 of the inhabitants of the Carnatic, extending 
 from Cape Comorin to Madras. Glorious indeed is the prospect 
 thus unfolded, that (as has been said) ' after having received its two 
 false religions from India, Ceylon shall, by a Christ-like retribution, 
 send over her sons to preach the one true religion to India's millions.' 
 
 Already a large proportion of the students trained in Jaffna College
 
 THE TUG OF WAR 569 
 
 (men whose attainments fully qualify them for secular work on salaries 
 of from ^5 to ^10 a month, with prospects of promotion) have 
 voluntarily chosen to devote their lives to Christian work as teachers, 
 catechists, or pastors on a salary of ;£^\ \os. to begin with, and no 
 prospect of ever rising above jQi^ a month. 
 
 Several of the most able have volunteered to leave their beloved 
 Isle in order to undertake posts in mission-schools at Rangoon, 
 Singapore, Madras, Madura, Bombay, Indore, and many other parts 
 of India, where they are working most successfully, thus profitably 
 trading with their birthright-talent of good caste. One of these young 
 men, who for some time has been worUng in Ahmednugger on a 
 salary of ^4 a month, was offered ^[o a month if he would accept 
 work elsewhere. He refused, saying that he believed he could do 
 more good where he was, and where he has won extraordinary influence 
 with a large class of high-caste young Hindoos. 
 
 It would be well if some of those who are ever ready to sneer at 
 the imaginary pecuniary advantages which are supposed to influence 
 native Christians, could realise the full meaning of a few such details 
 as these, and also the extraordinarily generous proportion of their 
 salary, or other worldly possessions, which is almost invariably set 
 aside by the converts in Ceylon (and in many other lands) as their 
 offering for some form of Church work — tithes, which we are so apt 
 to deem excessive, being accounted quite the minimum to be 
 offered. 
 
 It is quite a common thing in the gardens of Christians to see 
 every tenth palm or other fruit-bearing tree specially marked in token 
 that its whole crop is devoted to some sacred purpose. Poultry is 
 reared for the same object, and the eggs laid on Sunday are set apart 
 as an offering ; and even the very poor families who possess no 
 garden find a method of contributing their mite ; for when the mother 
 is measuring out so many handfuls of rice for each member of her 
 household, she ends by taking back one large handful from the 
 common store, and places it in ' the Lord's rice-box,' the contents of 
 which are periodically emptied, and being added to those of many 
 neighbours, make up a considerable item in the teacher's store. 
 
 I have already referred to the well-developed missionary spirit of 
 these Jaffna Christians. So early as 1848 this showed itself in pro- 
 viding funds to work a purely native mission to the 28,000 heathen 
 inhabitants of the large group of islands lying to the west of the 
 peninsula. One of these isles, Ninathevu, is the s[)ecial care of the
 
 570 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 (.'hristiaii students in the College, who there buill a school, unci now 
 continue to raise the funds for the support of their own missionary 
 and his wife by devoting many of their recreation hours (while the 
 others are playing cricket and other games) to cultivating a garden 
 and selling its produce. 
 
 These young men also do their utmost for the conversion of the 
 Hindoo students in the college, and on Sunday afternoons they 
 disperse themselves over eight or nine of the neighbouring villages, 
 holding Sabbath-schools, which are attended by about 400 children. 
 One of the young men invested ^5 in an American organ to enliven 
 the services in one village — an extravagance which called forth 
 remonstrances from his relations, till he proved that he had simply 
 abstained from spending it on tobacco.^ 
 
 The Blue Ribbon Army are also doing good work, and have 
 successfully established brotherhoods at Jaffna, Galle, and Kand\-. 
 
 There are at present seventy-six young men in the college, nine 
 students of divinity, and about 400 boys and girls attending the 
 schools. The total attendance at the village day-schools under the 
 management of the Principal of the College is about 2,500, and the 
 American Mission has about 8,000 children in other schools, of whom 
 it is certain that a large proportion will grow up as Christians, not- 
 withstanding the disadvantage that about one-third of the teachers 
 employed are unavoidably heathen. 
 
 The happy results of the hearty co-operation of the English and 
 American missionaries at Jaffna are especially observed in the union 
 of all Young Men's Christian Associations throughout the peninsula, 
 and in their healthy tone. The special value of such associations 
 may well be imagined when each member composing it has had to 
 nerve himself to come out from the idolatrous worship of his kinsmen, 
 and to endure the cross of their ridicule and persecution ; and to 
 many this has been meted in full measure, and bravely and i)atiently 
 borne. 
 
 ' In looking over missionary subscription lists, I see that several sensible men have 
 sent considi'rable sums under the very suggestive heading of ' Savkd FROM SMOKi:.' 
 I could not but think how much pleasanter many of my acquaintances would be if only 
 they would follow this example, and leave the atmosphere untainted. Considering 
 that men in general do not work harder than the majority of women, and their diet 
 and drink are certainly not more stinted than that of their sisters, can there be any 
 valid reason why, in e/ery household, the lords of creation should expend on this item 
 of solf-indulgcnce a sum which, were it devoted to missionary purposes, would entitle 
 that family to rank high among contributors to the good cause?
 
 THE TUG OF WAR 57 1 
 
 The three Missions also hold union Bible-meetings, at which the 
 people are addressed by representatives of all three Missions, and are 
 thus spared the confusion which is so often entailed by the antagonistic 
 attitude of Christian sects one towards another. Here, while each 
 retains its individuality, all unite in one common cause, which 
 surely is the true solution of that much-talked-of phantom, Church 
 union. 
 
 It seems to me that a very fit emblem of the Christian Church is 
 that of a mighty Wheel, of which Christ is both tyre and axle-tree, 
 and His true servants in all the Christian regiments are the spokes. 
 All are bound together in Him, and so, although they may not touch 
 one another, all unite to do His work in the progress of His kingdom. 
 So the ^Vheel, which for ages has been the symbol alike of Buddhism 
 and of Sun-worship, seems to me a most appropriate emblem of 
 the true Sun of Righteousness. 
 
 Though the Wesleyan Mission in this island cannot record such 
 startling success as has attended its work in the fallow fields of the 
 Fijian and some other Pacific groups, it has a special interest as being 
 the very first Oriental statto?i of this denomination. Its commence- 
 ment was so strongly advocated by Ur. Coke, that the Wesleyan 
 Conference consented to sanction his collecting funds and selecting 
 companions willing to accompany him thither. 
 
 Accordingly, on December 30, 1813, he embarked with six mis- 
 sionaries, two of whom were married. But the voyage, then in 
 slow sailing-vessels, was a very different business to the pleasure-trip 
 of the present day by swift steamers. To reach Ceylon they had to 
 travel via Bombay, a voyage of about six months, and ere they sighted 
 the Indian land two of that little company had been called home. 
 The first of these was Mrs. Ault, wdfe of one of the missionaries. 
 She died in February. But a yet sorer trial awaited the Mission in 
 the sudden death of their leader, the zealous and energetic Dr. Coke, 
 whose master-mind had originated the whole movement, and whose 
 death, ere even reaching their destination, proved sorely bewildering 
 to the survivors, the more so as they were unable even to cash his 
 bills, and so provide money for their maintenance. They found 
 good friends, however in Sir Evan Nepean, Governor of Bombay, 
 and Lord Molcsworth, Commandant of Gallc, where they finally 
 arrived on June 29 18 14, having left I'ombay nine days pre- 
 viously. 
 
 The Dutch Church being virtually dead, there was at that time
 
 572 Tiro iiArpy years in ceylon 
 
 no otlier mission of the Reformed Clnirch in Ceylon, or rather none 
 had secured any footing ; therefore, after a fortnight's consideration, 
 and much prayer and consultation, they resolved to divide the land, 
 three of the six being sent north to commence work in the Tamil 
 districts at Jaffna and Batticaloa, while the other three were to remain 
 in the southern districts among the Singhalese Buddhists, establish- 
 ing their headquarters at Galle and Matara. The former had, of 
 course, to begin by learning the Tamil tongue, while their brethren 
 in the south had to acquire that of the Singhalese. 
 
 In the three years that followed, the arrival of six other mission- 
 aries enabled them to commence work at Trincomalee, Negombo, 
 Kalutara, and Point Pedro, and to spare one of their number to 
 commence a mission at Madras. One is reminded of ' the grain of 
 mustard-seed ' on learning how small were the beginnings of the work 
 which, though it has not yet ' overshadowed the land,' has certainly 
 taken firm root in every province. At Port Pedro the first seed wag 
 sown in 1818, when a piece of land on the seaside was rented for the 
 equivalent of Cjd. a year, and thereon was commenced a school 
 attended by twelve boys. 
 
 In 1 8 19 these scattered workers met at Galle to estimate their 
 progress. They found that in the past five years 249 persons had 
 become Church members, which of course implied a very much 
 larger number of attendants at Christian services, and included 
 several Buddhist priests. Seventy-five schools had been established, 
 at which 4,484 children were receiving instruction. Mission-houses 
 and chapels had been built, a considerable number of native 
 catechists had been trained to teach their countrymen, and a printing 
 establishment in Colombo was pouring forth thousands of portions 
 of the Scriptures and of tracts. 
 
 Wherever it was found possible so to renovate the old Dutch 
 churches as to make them safe, these were occupied, but the majority 
 had gone so far to ruin and decay that the walls had to be taken down 
 and rebuilt, so that it was in most cases found simi)ler to build afresh. 
 One of the most important of the new churches was that built in 1839 
 at Batticaloa, where progress was particularly satisfactory, and was 
 marked in the four following years by no less than 758 baptisms, of 
 which 447 were of adults. 
 
 The Batticaloa station embraces a large number of villages 
 scattered along the seaboard for a distance of eighty miles, and is 
 worked from two mission-centres— one at the capital, which is known
 
 THE TUG OF WAR 
 
 573 
 
 to the natives as Puliantivu, and the other at Kahiiunai. The latter, 
 however, seems as yet to have afforded comparatively small en- 
 couragement ; but recently an awakening seems to have commenced, 
 •a symptom of which is the largely increased attendance of native 
 women at the village meetings, after one of which the native minister 
 was surprised and gladdened by the remark of a heathen man of good 
 position, ' I verily believe that your religion will soon overspread this 
 place, and surely stamp out ours.' 
 
 The opening at Kalmunai of a girls' boarding-school is in itself a 
 sure detail of success, as has been well proven by a similar school at 
 Batticaloa, in the immediate neighbourhood of which the Wesleyans 
 have also nine day-schools for girls and about twenty for boys, with 
 a total of about 2,500 pupils. 
 
 At Trincomalee, Port Pedro, and most of the other stations, the 
 same care is extended to the girls ; indeed, at Jaffna the Wesleyan 
 Mission established a boarding-school for their benefit so early as 
 1837. Certainly it could only accommodate six girls, but it has gone 
 on steadily increasing, and now numbers upwards of 100 boarders. 
 Parents of the upper class, who will only allow very young girls to 
 attend day-schools, do not object to send their daughters to boarding- 
 schools, paying a moderate fee towards their expenses ; and so well 
 pleased are they to see them turn out so neat, clean, and punctual in 
 their habits, so well instructed in the art of needlework, and especially 
 in making their own clothes, that they are content to accept the 
 probability of their becoming Christians, a result which very fre- 
 quently follows, so that such schools are likely to exercise an ever- 
 enlarging influence on the homes of the next generation. 
 
 In many parts of the country, however, mothers, and especially 
 grandmothers, who themselves have had no education, fail to see its 
 advantage for their descendants, and many girls who were converts 
 at heart have been removed from the schools and compelled again to 
 kneel before idol shrines. Of course here, as in all other heathen 
 lands, a very large number of hearers are convinced of the truth of 
 Christianity, and many are practically Christians at heart, but have 
 not yet found courage to face the inevitable domestic persecution 
 that awaits them when their inward conviction results in outward 
 profession. 
 
 One thing certain is that, sooner or later, every school yields some 
 converts, and the testimony of all the Missions is that more than half 
 the adults who eventuallv become Christians attribute their conversion
 
 574 ^^^'(^ HAP FY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 to teaching received in the schools, which they had ignored at the 
 time, but which, hke well-laid fuel, was ready to ignite in due season. 
 In many cases these early impressions smoulder on through half a 
 lifetime ere the convert finds courage openly to confess the faith 
 which must subject him to such severe domestic persecution. For 
 instance, amongst those who have recently sought baptism from the 
 Church Mission at Jaffna, one was the hereditary manager of a famous 
 Hindoo temple, who for thirty long years had vainly striven to silence 
 the inward voice which first spoke to his conscience at the Mission- 
 school. 
 
 Another is an old man seventy-five years of age, who in his 
 boyhood attended the American school. He was a very hopeful 
 pupil, and was the subject of much special prayer. He was, however, 
 removed by his relations, all of whom were strict worshippers of the 
 Hindoo gods. From the time he left school he never entered a 
 heathen temple, but, like Nicodemus of old, he sought God secretly 
 by night, dreading the persecution which he knew would result from 
 confessing his Lord. Sometimes he spoke to his wife about Christi- 
 anity, but she called him a madman, and so he still shrank from 
 taking up such a cross as that of open avowal. At last, when 
 attacked by a severe illness, he vowed that if he recovered he would 
 confess himself to be a disciple of Christ. He did recover, and kept 
 his vow ; whereupon his own daughters turned him out of the house, 
 and the old man would have been left to starve had not a still older 
 Christian catechist, who was a distant connection of his own, offered 
 him a home under his roof, thus securing a little interval of peace ere 
 this true friend, 'Old Philips,' was himself called to his rest— a good 
 and faithful servant, who since his own baptism in 1830 had never 
 ceased working diligently and successfully for the conversion of 
 others. 
 
 Remembering all the prayers that were offered, sixty years ago, 
 on behalf of that promising school-boy one cannot but think how apt 
 is the illustration of the husbandman who, 'with long i)atience,' waits 
 for the precious fruit. 
 
 The aim of the Society is to establish in every village a school 
 with an able teacher, who, while fulfilling all requirements of the 
 Government code of education, shall make the religious instruction 
 of the children his primary care, 'i'o provide such Christian teachers, 
 and also local preachers to keep up a constant series of services for 
 the heathen in all the villages, the AVcsleyan Mission has established
 
 THE TUG OF WAR 575 
 
 at Jaffna a Training Institute for male teachers, which shall supply 
 native agents for the building up of a healthy native Church in the 
 Tamil districts. 
 
 To those who have noted how sure a test of vitality in any branch 
 of the Church is its recognition of the duty of winning others, it is 
 especially interesting to note that the native Wesleyan congregations 
 at Jaffna and Batticaloa (having for many years entirely supported 
 their own pastors) have now established among themselves societies 
 which send out catechists to preach in certain jungle-villages. These 
 are maintained by funds locally subscribed by the native Christians 
 as thank-offerings for having themselves been called out of heathen 
 darkness. 
 
 The Wesleyan Church at Jaffna also sends Tamil ministers to 
 Colombo and its neighbourhood to minister to their countrymen who 
 have migrated thither. 
 
 For the southern districts, namely, Negombo, Colombo, Kandy, 
 Galle, and Matara, the native ministers are, of course, either 
 Singhalese or Burghers. They are said to be not only eminently 
 good men, but in many cases so well versed in Buddhistic learning 
 as to prove more than a match for such priests as have sought to 
 draw them into controversy. As an instance of the excellent work 
 done by some of these men, I may refer to that of one now gone to 
 his rest — the Rev. Peter De Zylva, a Singhalese bearing a Portuguese 
 name. He was appointed to begin work in the district of Moratuwa 
 jMuUa (commonly called Morottoo, which lies between Colombo and 
 Kalutara), as being a part of the country notorious for its ignorance 
 and the prevalence of devil-worship. Here he commenced visiting 
 from house to house and conversing in the bazaars with all who would 
 speak with him, but many months elapsed ere he was rewarded by 
 any symptom of success. At length, however, his words, exemplified 
 by his own good life, began to take effect, and at the end of twenty 
 years he had the joy of knowing that, out of a population of about 
 4,700, 600 of the villagers had become faithful followers of his 
 Lord. 
 
 One of his earliest converts was the Kapurala or priest of a devil- 
 temple, close to which he had established a preaching-station. 
 Without leaving his temple, the old man could not choose but hear 
 the hymns and prayers and preaching which began so strangely to 
 influence those who had hitherto been his own followers. Ere long 
 he himself was convinced that He of whom Dc Zylva preached was
 
 576 TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 a Ijetter Master than his cruel devil-spirits ; so locking the temple, 
 which was his own property, he presented the key to the Christian 
 teacher, and bade him do as he saw fit with all the poor idols, for 
 that thenceforth he would worship only the Saviour, of whom he had 
 now heard. And the old priest proved a faithful and an earnest 
 helper. 
 
 The good work thus Ijegun has continued to prosper, the converts 
 proving their faith by the self-denying liberality of their alms. They 
 now support two Singhalese pastors, and have built chapels and 
 mission-houses. One of the former, which was recently opened, is a 
 large substantial building, erected from a native design under native 
 superintendence. All labour for the roof and windows was contributed 
 gratuitously, a hundred carpenters (not all Wesleyan converts) each 
 freely giving a week's work ; they commenced on Monday morning, 
 and finished on Saturday night, the Christian women of the district 
 bringing gifts of food for all the workmen. 
 
 Although such j)urely voluntary work as this is probably exceptional, 
 the members of this Mission have found the people so wonderfully 
 ready to afford help in every village where a school or chapel has 
 been erected, that the Mission has rarely borne more than half the 
 cost of the building. For instance, in the Port Pedro district, near 
 Jaffna, several handsome school-chapels have been erected almost 
 entirely through the liberality of natives who still bore on their fore- 
 heads the symbolic marks of the Hindoo gods, and who not only 
 granted the sites, but also presented all the palmyra-palm trees for 
 rafters, the plaited palm-leaves for the thatch, and handsome gifts in 
 money. Of course, in such cases it maybe assumed that the educational 
 advantages thus secured outweigh their antagonism to the teacher's 
 creed. Besides, in many cases the assistant teachers are heathens, 
 and, consequently, the majority of the pupils continue to worship the 
 Tamil gods. 
 
 With regard to 'W'esleyan educational work in the Southern Pro- 
 vince, there are two important training colleges, namely, the Richmond 
 College at Galie, and the Wesley College at Colombo, where there is 
 also a high-school for girls, as well as one for boys. An industrial 
 school for girls has recently been established at Kandy, where the 
 daughters of poor parents are instructed in sewing, knitting, and 
 biscuit-making. Badulla also has an excellent school for girls. 
 
 At Colombo an industrial home for destitute boys and girls supplies 
 willing workers for the cotton-spinning mills. In the same city the
 
 THE TUG OF WAR 577 
 
 Mission owns a valuable printing establishment. It has also estab- 
 lished a mission to seamen, which provides for visiting the ships in 
 harbour and inviting the sailors to special Sunday services. Com- 
 paratively few, however, are able to come ashore, as merchant vessels 
 in harbour recognise no day of rest, and the hot, noisy toil of dis- 
 charging and receiving cargo goes on night and day without intermis- 
 sion, Sunday and week-day alike. • 
 
 The workers in this Mission have latterly been very sorely 
 hampered by pecuniary troubles, serious and repeated reductions in 
 the grants from headquarters in England having put them to great 
 straits in order to find the means of subsistence for the native agents ; 
 for, apart from the grief of being compelled to abandon the half- 
 cultivated mission-fields, such retrenchment would necessarily imply 
 casting into destitution men who had served the Mission faithfully. 
 Of course this lack of funds has seriously hindered extension, the 
 Mission having been compelled to refuse the services of various 
 promising young men, who wished to enter the native ministry. 
 
 This is the more to be regretted as the Wesleyans have but recently 
 commenced a work which promises immense success if only the 
 labourers were forthcoming, namely, that in the hitherto uncared-for 
 province of Uva, where, as I have already mentioned,^ the people of 
 about 800 villages are sunk in the most degrading ignorance and 
 superstition. 
 
 The Rev. Samuel Langdon, chairman of the Wesleyan Society in 
 Ceylon, writes from his ' Happy Valley Mission ' that he has not a 
 tenth of the men or the funds necessary to do justice to the work in 
 that province. Could Christian schools be at once established in all 
 those villages, a very great step would be gained. Otherwise, under 
 the energetic leading of English Theosophists, Buddhist schools will 
 be opened by teachers trained in Government schools, and will 
 secure the Government grant. It will then be far more difficult to 
 secure a footing in this now vacant field. 
 
 The Wesleyan Mission in Ceylon to all nationalities at present 
 numbers seventeen I'Anopean clergy, with about 200 native assistants 
 
 • In the busy harbour of Hong-Kong, Sunday labour is now reduced to the 
 minimum by the strictly-enforced requirement for a special license at very high rates 
 for all Sunday-work. Thus sailors and officers may enjoy the exceptional privilege of 
 ■A Sunday at rest. What a boon similar harbour-regulations would pro\e in other 
 ports ! 
 
 ^ Page 331. 
 
 P P
 
 578 Tiro HAPPY YEARS /A' CEYLON 
 
 of all sorts. The total nuinber of Church members does not exceed 
 4,000, but the regular attendance at school and [)ublic worship is 
 about 20,000, 
 
 There is one detail of progress which I must not omit (believing 
 as we do that the truest evidence of life in any branch of the Christian 
 Church is its readiness to seek extension by undertaking mission- 
 work), and that is, that in the autumn of 1887 the Wesleyan Church 
 in Ceylon commenced a mission to Upper Burmah, which, by its 
 annexation to Britain in the previous year, was for the first time 
 practically open to such effort. Two European missionaries, accom- 
 panied by two young Singhalese, went to begin work among the 
 Buddhists of Mandalay, with its 5,000 priests. Truly a tiny band to 
 attack so strong a foe ! 
 
 They landed without one friend to welcome them, and totally 
 ignorant of the language ; but they immediately secured three 
 advantageous sites for Mission-stations, with ample space for extension. 
 So earnestly did they commence the study of the language, that very 
 soon they were able to address the people in their own tongue, and 
 found that the totally new idea of God as our ever-present loving 
 Father soon attracted attentive hearers. They illustrate their indoor 
 teaching by good magic-lantern views, all of Scripture scenes, so that 
 the truth may reach the mind by eye and ear simultaneously. 
 
 The beginning made by the two young Singhalese has been so 
 satisfactory, that it is greatly hoped that others, both men and women, 
 themselves converts from Buddhism, will volunteer for the work, and 
 that England and Australia will furnish the requisite funds for their 
 support. 
 
 Note. — I have often been struck by the manner in which, on their return to 
 England, some men who have lived in various countries without taking any per- 
 sonal interest in Christian work, authoritatively decry the practical results, and 
 even the very efforts, of those who are devoting their lives to Mission work. 
 
 Such an one Mad been for some time indulging in this strain about a district 
 where he had been stationed for a considerable period, and where he declared 
 ' the missionaries did nothing.' Presently a Bishop who overheard him came 
 forward, and very gently asked him how long he had been resident in his present 
 ([uartcrs in one of our Midland cities. 'About two years,' was the reply. * Ah, 
 then,' said the Bishop, ' I shall be so very glad to have your unbiassed opinion of the 
 working of the Young Men's Institute there. You never heard of it ? Dear me, 
 I wonde! at that ; it is such a very wide-spreading organisation. I hope you like the
 
 THE TUG OF WAR 579 
 
 system of our Schools, and especially of our Industrial and Night Schools, where 
 so many rough lads and wild hoydens arc transformed into comparatively 
 respectable members of society ? ' 
 
 Once more the ' accuser of the brethren ' had to confess his ignorance, and his 
 interrogator continued : ' Well, what do you think of the system of our Working- 
 Men's Provident Institution ? of our Free Hospital ? of our Orphanage and 
 Asylum ? of our Night Refuge ? of our Ragged Church, crowded with poor tattered 
 creatures who never show in our streets? of our Band of Hope and our Home for 
 Strangers ? And what is your personal impression of the workers in our Home 
 Mission ? ' Of course there was but one reply to all these questions. ' Then,' said 
 
 the Bishop, ' do you not think that possibly it may have been the same at 
 
 Station in India ? ' 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEVLON 
 
 Salvation Army — Work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel — Work of the 
 Church Missionary Society — Cyclone in 1884 — Work in Pallaiand the Wannie — Con- 
 verts from Hindooism — Tamil Coolie Mission — Christian lyrics — Kandyan itinerancy 
 — Converts from Buddhism — Mission at Cotta — Trinity College, Kandy — Summary. 
 
 However deeply we sympathise with the efforts of ' all who love our 
 Lord in sincerity,' we cannot but regret that, considering the number 
 of agencies ' already at work in this Isle (where Christian growth has 
 been so cruelly impeded by the jealousies of successive gardeners), 
 the Salvation Army should have introduced a fresh element of con- 
 fusion by selecting for their campaign, not purely heathen villages, 
 but several in which much good work had already been done. Still 
 more unfortunately, a marked characteristic of some of their leaders 
 has been such violent antagonism to other Christian denominations, 
 that one who has hitherto been a subscriber to the funds of the Army 
 has recently declared their position in Ceylon to be that of persecutors 
 and hinderers of Christian workers. 
 
 Sad as such dissensions must ever be, they are tenfold more 
 distressing in presence of those whom we would fain win from the 
 worship of idols and sacred cattle and the reverent use of cow-dung, 
 and who very justly think that Christians should at least agree 
 amongst themselves before they try to teach others. 
 
 ' I regret that lack of space compels nie to omit all details of the Presbyterian and 
 Baptist Missions. The latter numbers about 6,oco adherents, of whom 550 are com- 
 municants. The former has 2,500 adherents, of whom about 1,000 are communicants. 
 
 P 1' 2
 
 58o TWO NAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 For the same reason it is deeply to be regretted that even within 
 the fold of the Church of England the converts should have been 
 perplexed by ' High Church' and 'Low Church' questions, resulting 
 for a while in serious difficulties. These, happily, have in a great 
 measure subsided, and though it is certain that this division of the 
 house against itself expedited the disestablishment of the Anglican 
 Church from its position as the Established Church of the Isle, there 
 is good reason to hope that in this, as in other matters, apparent evil 
 has been overruled for good, the necessity for united action having 
 led to a more perfect fusion of the interests of all members of the 
 Episcopal Church, and to such resolute effort to meet the consequent 
 pecuniary difficulties, that there is now little doubt that when the last 
 props of State support are removed, the Episcopal Church of Ceylon 
 will be found stronger and healthier than in her previous condition. 
 Already she has her own Synod, her own constitution, and is generally 
 well afloat. 
 
 It is worthy of note that she has thus been compelled to take up 
 the self-same work which she has for many years been urging the 
 native Church to undertake, namely, not only the entire support of 
 its own institutions, but also the duty of contributing the needful 
 funds for sending teachers to its heathen countrymen. 
 
 So since June 30, 1886, all State-aid has been withdrawn, 
 with the exception of the stipends of such Government chaplains, 
 Episcopal and Presbyterian, as were appointed prior to July i, 1881, 
 such aid, of course, ceasing with the individual lives. 
 
 The total number of clergy of the Episcopal Church in the 
 diocese of Colombo (in other words, in Ceylon) is now seventy-one. 
 Of these, thirty-four(/.e'., eighteen European and sixteen native) are in 
 the service of the Church Missionary Society, and fifteen (including 
 nine natives) in that of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. 
 The native clergy are Singhalese, Tamil, and Burgher ; some are half- 
 Burgher, half-Singhalese. 
 
 Let us 1)riefly glance at the work of the two great Societies 
 whose rei)resentatives have striven so earnestly to build up this 
 Church. 
 
 The Church Missionary Society began work here in 181 8. 
 The Society for the Prop.xoation of 'ihe Gospel, generally 
 known as the S.P.G., followed suit in 1840. 
 
 The S.P.G. has from the beginning imported very few European 
 clergy. It has rather aimed at assisting the Government chaplains
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEYLON 581 
 
 (whose recognised official duty was simply to minister to such as were 
 already Christians), and by enabling them to extend their sphere 
 among the surrounding heathen, give a missionary character lo their 
 work also. 
 
 In 1845 the Isle, which had previously been included in the See 
 of Madras, was made a separate diocese, and Dr. Chapman was 
 consecrated first Bishop of Colombo. By his exertions and liberal 
 gifts, aided by the S.P.G., St. Thomas College at Colombo was 
 founded and endowed with a special view to training native clergy 
 and schoolmasters. 
 
 Here English, Singhalese, and Tamil lads receive most careful 
 religious teaching, combined with such high secular education as may 
 fit them for any profession ; but the College maintains its original 
 missionary character, inasmuch as it furnishes almost all the native 
 clergy in the employment of the Society, and also supplies the ever- 
 increasing demand for schoolmasters.^ 
 
 A high-class school for girls has for some years occupied a pleasant 
 bungalow close to the Cathedral, and the Society has also established 
 a female boarding-school at Matara, which is a very important centre 
 of Mission-work, the attendance at the various schools being upwards 
 of 1,100. 
 
 A very interesting S.P.G. work is the large orphanage of 
 Buonavista, near Galle, of which I have already spoken.- It supplies 
 Christian teachers, both male and female, for the surrounding village- 
 schools. About one sixth of the children attending these are Christians, 
 and a much larger proportion are removed by their relations so soon 
 as they evince a strong bias in favour of Christianity. Then Buddhist 
 priests are called in, and a period of home persecution ensues, which, 
 however, rarely succeeds in extinguishing the liglit thus early kindled. 
 
 Apart from these centres, a quiet work is progressing in many 
 places, such as Badulla, and several of the neighbouring villages, 
 where a special effort is now being made for the extension of Mission- 
 work in the hitherto neglected province of Uva. About 400 children 
 have been gathered into the Anglican schools in this district. 
 
 To return to the earliest efforts on behalf of Ceylon by the Church 
 Missionary Society. Between 1818 and 1821 work was commenced 
 at four points, which have ever since been important centres. These 
 were Jaffna, in the extreme north ; Kandy, in the centre of the Isle ; 
 Cotta, near Colombo, and Baddigama, in tlic extreme south. 
 1 For details of this college sec Chapter ii. ^ Sec p. 430.
 
 582 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 In the first instance, the Rev. Joseph Knight was sent to commence 
 work at Jaffna. Finding the Americans and Wesleyans already in 
 the field, he established himself at Nellore, in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood. There, six years later, he was joined by the Rev. W. Adley, 
 and together they studied, and taught, and preached ; but seven 
 more years of patient work elapsed ere their hearts were cheered by 
 making a single convert. 
 
 At length, in 1830, Mr. Adley's Tamil horse-keeper renounced 
 idolatry and sought baptism, and ere that year closed a little band of 
 ten Christians formed the nucleus of the future Church. One of 
 these, named Matthew Philips, who had been working with Mr. Knight 
 as his pundit ever since his arrival in the Isle, became the first 
 catechist, and from that day till the hour of his death at Christmas 
 18S4 (when he had completed his ninetieth year), he proved a zealous 
 and eloquent preacher and most devoted Christian. 
 
 Such was the story of this Mission for the first twelve years. Ten 
 more elapsed, and the Church members had increased to twenty-five, 
 but as yet did not include a single woman. Ten years later the con- 
 gregation at Nellore had increased to eighty, a new station was 
 opened at Kopay in the immediate neighbourhood, and an old 
 Portuguese Church at ChundicuUy, also in the neighbourhood, was 
 made over to the Mission, together with its congregation of Protestant 
 Burghers. By degrees other stations have been included, and a large 
 number of schools both for boys and girls have been established, and 
 in these all the teachers are Christians ; and thus the tree whose early 
 growth was so slow has fiiirly taken root. A very important detail 
 was the commencement in 1842 of a girls' boarding-school at Nellore. 
 Here about 270 girls have received careful training, and many have 
 become wives of the native clergy and schoolmasters. 
 
 The Jaffna peninsula is the extreme north-west corner of Ceylon, 
 a dead level, palm-clad plain, twenty miles wide by thirty-six in length. 
 
 A glance at the map will show better than pages of description 
 how strangely the sea has intersected the land between this plain and 
 the main Isle, forming truly labyrinthine lagoons. 
 
 In October and December 1884 this district was devastated by 
 terrible cyclones, which, following on a period of prolonged drought 
 and short crops, proved terribly trying to the people. The first of 
 these appalling tempests was heralded by a pale-green sunset sky, 
 flushing blood-red on the western horizon. It resulted in the total 
 destruction of 66,000 cocoa-nut, palmyra, and areca-palms, and about
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEYLON i^%i 
 
 7,000 other valuable trees, chiefly fruit-trees. On the morning after 
 the cyclone the peninsula resembled a newly-felled jungle, and even 
 the streets were blocked by fallen trees, including about a hundred 
 of the beautiful yellow suriyas,' torn up by the roots. About 120,000 
 plantain and banana bushes were ruined. Even the trees that sur- 
 vived were stripped of foliage and appeared as if scorched by fire. 
 Fourteen thousand head of cattle, sheep, goats, and buffaloes were 
 killed, as were also twenty-eight human beings. Thousands of crows 
 were found dead with their wings all twisted. 
 
 The great breakwater which protected the town, the embankment, 
 and sea-wall were alike destroyed ; the road skirting the sea for many 
 miles was washed away, as were also bridges and culverts, and 
 thousands of houses of the poorest sort were damaged. Twenty-seven 
 vessels are known to have been wrecked ; some brigs and small 
 schooners were carried miles inland, and the town was strewn with 
 wreckage. Small craft innumerable perished, and hundreds of fishing 
 and cargo boats were found in gardens and fields, while some were 
 left in the streets or on the half-ruinous verandahs of houses ! Others, 
 which were recognised as belonging to neighbouring islands, were 
 found washed ashore. 
 
 Equally lamentable was the destruction of the rice-crops. In the 
 October storm hundreds of acres of paddy-land, which had been 
 carefully ploughed and manured, and were all ready for sowing, were 
 so flooded as to resemble only a vast lake. When the waters subsided, 
 the wretched farmers did their best to repair the damage, but the 
 December cyclone effectually blasted their hopes. Though in point 
 of fury it was but as an echo of the first, nevertheless the prevalence 
 of unseasonable rain destroyed the rice-crops and ruined the 
 gardens. 
 
 A curious incident of the cyclone was the fall of the steeple of 
 Kopay Church, which was blown over, and in its fall exactly filled up 
 an adjacent well, a very grave loss in that region of droughts. 
 
 For a considerable period after this the poverty of the people was 
 such that many of the children used to come to school half-famished, 
 and for some time attendance was seriously diminished. 
 
 In this extremity many of the school-teachers shared their pittance 
 with the hungriest of their flock, but the suffering of all was severe. 
 Of course, diminished school attendance involves a reduction in 
 
 ^ 7/iespesia fofiiiliica, formerly called I/yhiscus,
 
 584 TIVO HAPPY YEARS h\ CEYLON 
 
 (Government grants and in the salaries of the teachers, and this again, 
 in the American Mission, reacts on the modest income of the native 
 pastor, which is partly dependent on the offerings of the teachers, 
 who, it seems, are in the habit of devoting one-tenth of their salary 
 to the service of the Church. 
 
 About twenty years ago very decisive efforts were made by the 
 missionaries in order to root out any lingering idea that temporal 
 advantage attached to the profession of Christianity. In order still 
 more strongly to counteract such an impression, the native Christians 
 were urged, so far as lay in their power, not only to undertake the 
 support of their own institutions, but also to contribute the needful 
 funds for sending teachers to their heathen brethren. The result of this 
 movement has been, that whilst a limited number of mere professors 
 relapsed into heathenism, the majority have become very much more 
 decided and zealous, and the native Church has become in every 
 respect healthier and stronger. 
 
 This has notably been the case in the Northern Province (of which 
 Jaffna is the capital), where the effects of Mission-work on Hindooism 
 present a striking contrast to the results effected in the south of the 
 Isle, where only, as it were, the fringe of Buddhism has as yet been 
 touched. And yet those most practically acquainted with the work 
 say that even in North Ceylon 'heathenism is still so gross and 
 rampant that Mission agencies can hardly count the battle there to be 
 much more than begun.' But those who are Christians are in real 
 earnest ; and so, notwithstanding the poverty of the people, a Native 
 IVIissionary Association was formed in the autumn of 1883, which 
 now supports several native teachers to assist in the work commenced 
 in 1862 by the Church Missionary Society in two of the dreariest and 
 hitherto most neglected districts of the Isle, namely, the Wannie and 
 Ballai. 
 
 The latter is only about twenty miles from Jaffna, a sandy tract of 
 cocoa-nut plantations and malarious fever-haunted jungle. So un- 
 healthy is the climate, that of all the Mission agents who have been 
 sent to work here, not one has escaped the jungle-fever. The 
 population numbers about 10,000 persons, and in all this district there 
 is but one medical man, whose primary duty is to look after the 
 planters. As for the people, finding small benefit from their own 
 medicine-men, and assuming all manner of sickness and trouble to be 
 the visitation of offended evil spirits, they at once call in diviners and 
 devil-dancers, who distract the poor sufferer with their truly ' infernal'
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEVLON 585 
 
 noise, or else they make a pilgrimage to some favourite devil-temple. 
 Anxious relations bring the patient a drink of foul water, which has 
 washed the feet of some filthy fakir, and which is deemed precious 
 medicine.' 
 
 Here, indeed, is a fallow field awaiting medical missionaries 
 endowed with such love for their suffering fellow-creatures as to induce 
 them to face existence in such uninviting surroundings. It is, how- 
 ever, certain that men born in the Isle might face the climate with 
 less danger than Europeans, and it is to be hoped that the Medical 
 College at Colombo, which is training so large a number of students, 
 may yield the right men. Certainly no other form of mission is so 
 certain to go straight to the hearts of these poor villagers, and it is 
 satisfactory to learn that the Jaffna Medical Mission has now been 
 commenced in real earnest, and is to be under control of the directors 
 of the Jaffna College {i.e., missionaries and native Christians in con- 
 nection with the three Missions). 
 
 Dr. Marston, formerly of Mildmay (London), has gone out to 
 assume charge of this great work, but as yet is the only missionary- 
 physician among the 316,000 inhabitants of the Northern Province ; 
 and what that means may be inferred from the fact that within two 
 months in 1S88-1889 ^^o ^cs^ \\'\'xn 2,000 persons died in Jaffna 
 during an epidemic of malignant fever, and such visitations of fever, 
 small-pox, and cholera are by no means rare, and invariably carry off 
 thousands, who perish from ignorance of the simplest laws of 
 medicine. 
 
 Still more unattractive than Pallai is the dreary Wannie district, 
 a name chiefly associated with that of the virulent AVannie fever, 
 which not only incapacitates its victims at the time, but is very 
 difficult to shake off. This district comprises an area of about 14,000 
 square miles, and its population, which averages one to the square 
 mile, is scattered along the sea-coast, and in about 200 small villages 
 inland, each surrounded by swampy rice-fields, the irrigation of which 
 is a constant care, as any failure of the water-supply from the village 
 tank involves famine. Most of these villages take their name from 
 the tank ; hence the frequent termination of ' Colom,' a tank, e.g. 
 Choendic-Colom, Sundi-Colom. 
 
 These wretched people suffer terribly from pleurisy and from a 
 swelling in the glands of the throat, but worst of all from the fearful 
 
 ' For astounding details of sorcery and criminal preparation of charms by a native 
 doctor, sec Emerson 'Icnnant's 'C't'ylon,' vol. ii. pp. 544-548.
 
 586 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 parangi or karayo, that horrible disease, somewhat resembling leprosy 
 in its most loathsome form, which is aggravated by bad water and 
 scanty fare. Wherever the restoration of the ancient tanks has 
 blessed a district with a renewed water-supply and consequent 
 abundant crops, then this awful disease in a great measure dis- 
 appears. 
 
 The people are described as being sunk mentally, morally, and 
 physically to the deepest degradation. Their faith is Hindooism of 
 the very lowest type, with a large admixture of devil-worship. 
 
 In this unpromising field, agents of the Church Mission were sent 
 to commence work at Mullaitivo, a town on the east coast about 
 seventy miles south of Jaffna, and at Vavania-Velan-Colom, a large 
 inland village, about fifty miles from Mullaitivo. From these centres, 
 evangelistic work of all sorts has been carried to the surrounding 
 districts. Here, as in the Pallai district, schools have been esta- 
 blished, and several of the most promising converts have been taken 
 to the Training Institution at Kopay, that they may eventually return 
 as teachers to their own countrymen. Thus an influence has gradually 
 been created, and prejudice so far overcome that now no opposition is 
 offered to the Christian teachers ; on the contrary, their message is 
 heard with eager attention, and in several cases devil-dancers, and 
 even the priests of the devil-temples, have been among the earliest 
 converts, although their acceptance of Christ involved the sacrifice of 
 their sole means of living — a very strong test of faith. 
 
 Indeed, if the offertory by which this native Mission is supported 
 could tell the story of self-denial by which many of its small sums 
 have been obtained, no better proof could be given of how thoroughly 
 in earnest these poor Christians arc ; in fact, in the year when ex 
 treme po\erty was aggravated by cyclones, the subscriptions, so far 
 from diminishing, actually increased. Amongst its items are gifts 
 from several young men, who have been trained in the Institution, of 
 sums equal to one-half, one-third, or one-twelfth of their first year's 
 salary as schoolmaster. 
 
 In the records of this work we occasionally obtain a touching 
 glimpse of some of the difficulties which beset the Hindoo, whose 
 reason and heart alike incline to the Christian faith. Foremost 
 among these are the claims of deceased relations, and the supposed 
 cruelty to these involved in omitting the ancestral offerings ; for as 
 the dead of the last three generations are believed to be entirely 
 dependent on the living for their supplies and deliverance from
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEYLON 587 
 
 purgatorj', and as only a son can officiate at the funeral rites of his 
 father, it is evident that when, by becoming a Christian, a man 
 incapacitates himself from fulfilling these obligations, he is doing a 
 grievous wrong to the dead, whom he is most bound to reverence. 
 Hence we hear of the ' great fortitude ' shown by a convert in refusing 
 to take his part in the heathen rites at his father's funeral, and we 
 know what tears, entreaties, and persecutions he must have withstood 
 from all the women of the family.^ 
 
 Moreover, when a Christian is taken ill, his sufferings are often 
 greatly aggravated by the persistent determination of his relatives to 
 perform noisy devil-ceremonies on his behalf, and also by the fear 
 lest, after his death, they should forcibly burn his body with heathen 
 rites. If some other members of the family are Christians, they can 
 generally succeed in preventing this dishonour to the dead, but very 
 painful scenes sontetimes offend this solemn presence, as in the case 
 of a young schoolmistress, whose death-bed was a striking instance 
 of calm Christian peace, but no sooner had her spirit passed away, 
 than her heathen relatives commenced a terrible uproar in their 
 determination to enforce heathen rites. Her father and brothers, 
 however, being also Christians, stood firm ; whereupon, all their 
 kinsfolk forsook them, refusing to have anything further to do with 
 them. 
 
 Very striking is the manner in which these poor caste-ridden 
 people occasionally apply some story of our Lord's tenderness and 
 humility, as contrasted with the harsh arrogance of the Brahmans. 
 Thus a poor coolie chanced to hear the story of Christ's visit to 
 Zacchceus. Next time he visited the temple and presented his ac- 
 customed offering, he felt how different was the action of the proud 
 priest, who bade him lay his money on the ground, and who then 
 poured water over it and washed it with his foot before he would take 
 it up. So he went back to the house where he had heard those good 
 words, and stood outside listening during the morning prayers, and 
 one who saw him, bade him enter, and taught him, and soon that 
 man became a working Christian. Like St. Andrew, he ' first found 
 his own brother, and brought him to Jesus ; ' then he ])ersuadcd his 
 wife, and so the leaven of good has spread. 
 
 1 In ' Tlie Himalayas and Indian Plains' I have given full -dolails of the reeiuiic- 
 mcr\\s oi A >ices/ra I Worship among the Hindoos. See pp. 187-190, also 574, 575. And 
 in 'Wanderings in China' I have entered minutely into the still more extraordinary 
 ramifications of the same worship in that ^■ast limpire.
 
 588 Tim HAPPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 But very often, when a man resolves to take this great step, he is 
 rejected by all his relations ; his own wife and sons utterly despise 
 him. Yet again and again, such a one has persevered in prayer for 
 their conversion, and although years may elapse ere one will join him, 
 sooner or later the change is wrought, and the patient convert has 
 the gladness of bringing his family to crave Christian baptism. 
 Amongst those who have thus been added to the Church was one of 
 the most notorious devil-dancers of Pallai, whose delight it was to 
 ridicule the preaching of the Gospel. Nevertheless, that he might be 
 the better able to cavil, he bought a Bible and began reading it, with 
 the oft-told result. Light entered into his heart so fully, that not all 
 the prayers and tears of his kinsfolk could shake his new-born faith ; 
 and so eager did he now become to confess Christ in presence of all 
 men, that those who witnessed his baptism begged that he might be 
 named Paul \'ayrakiam (Paul the Zealous). With him was baptized 
 another young man, whose conversion was due to the efforts of 
 another recent convert from the devil-dancers. 
 
 For in these fever-stricken districts, and on those burning sandy 
 plains, the old, old story comes home to these poor neglected ones 
 with just the same love and power that it has done to myriads in all 
 corners of the earth wheresoever this Gospel has been preached. In 
 the life of many of the converts there is abundant proof of their 
 having fully realised their Saviour's love, and of their living in the 
 blessed consciousness of His abiding presence ; and there is just the 
 same earnest longing to lead others to a personal knowledge of the 
 only source of light and life, with apparently less of that shyness — 
 perhaps selfish shyness — which leads our more reserved Western 
 natures to shrink from speech on the subjects which we recognise as 
 most vital to ourselves, and yet often guard as jealously as though 
 our neighbour had no concern therein. 
 
 Grand enduring work has been done by many such loving dis- 
 ciples — work known only to their Master — in the gradual upbuilding 
 of His Church. 
 
 I must, however, turn to a less pleasant topic, to show how not 
 only the good leaven spreads, but also the evil ; for, sad to say, here, 
 as in Japan and other countries, the bitter leaven of infidel teaching 
 is working with pernicious effect, and the writings of the leading ' free- 
 thinkers ' and atheists poison the minds of many a would-be-wise 
 young student. So the preachers of the Gospel have not merely to 
 contend with the systems of a debased Buddhism or Brahmanism
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEYLON 589 
 
 but with all the oft-repeated, oft-refuted difficulties and objections, 
 which are deemed so doubly wise because they are imported from 
 Europe. 
 
 For instance, one of the chief Hindoo festivals in this district is 
 annually held at an ancient temple near Nellore, in honour of Kan- 
 daswami, the youngest son of the god Siva. The festival continues 
 for twenty-five days, and on the tenth day the idol is brought forth 
 and placed on a splendid car, and so drawn triumphantly in sunwise 
 circuit round the temple. The most fanatical observances of olden 
 days are now prohibited, and here, as at the great Juggernath Temple 
 of India, devotees may no longer throw themselves beneath the 
 wheels of the car, but have to satisfy their zeal by rolling in the dust 
 in its wake. This is done by hundreds of the vast multitude who 
 annually assemble from all parts of the country in very earnest 
 pilgrimage. 
 
 vSuch a gathering affords an opportunity of sowing good words 
 broadcast, which is not neglected by the Christian teachers who 
 mingle freely in the crowd, and do what they can by preaching and 
 the sale and distribution of books. Latterly they have been gladdened 
 by hearing comments on the good which Christianity was acknow- 
 ledged to have effected in Jaffna, and some were heard to say that 
 doubtless forty or fifty years hence all the population will have become 
 Christian. But though many listened with interest, an organised 
 system of molestation and interruption has now been set on foot by 
 a party of young men, who go about, not to defend the insulted dignity 
 of Kandaswami, but to distribute pamphlets and tracts compiled by 
 themselves from the works of atheistic Europeans. 
 
 In like manner, quite the most serious bar to the acceptance of 
 the Gospel by Buddhists is the energetic teaching of European ex- 
 ponents of Theosophy and Esoteric Buddhism. 
 
 A very important branch of Church missionary work amongst the 
 Hindoo population of Ceylon is that known as the Tamil Coolie 
 Mission, which has for its object the instruction of all the legion of 
 immigrants from Malabar, who come generally for a term of five years 
 or more, chiefly to labour on the plantations, and do all the hard 
 work of the Isle. This Mission was commenced on a small scale 
 about thirty years ago, and has been mainly supported by the coffee- 
 planters, who raise more than 1,000/. a year to maintain catechists 
 and schools — a clear proof of their estimate of this good effort. 
 
 Upwards of forty native agents are now thus employed ; but so
 
 590 
 
 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 numerous are the estates, that eaeh catechist has to visit from forty 
 to sixty, and so can only go to each about once in three months, 
 which does not allow much chance of gaining individual influence 
 with the utterly ignorant heathen. 
 
 The Mission is superintended by three European and two Tamil 
 clergymen, whose lives are spent in one long round of difficult hill- 
 travelling, over an area so vast, that on an average they can only go 
 over the ground once in six months. Their district is about as large 
 as "Wales, and much more mountainous ; so this Mission may well be 
 described as under-manned, the more so seeing how many i)lantations 
 lie beyond the reach of any English service, save on these rare 
 occasions. 
 
 To supply even this scanty spiritual fare involves an exhausting 
 life of ceaseless locomotion. Some folk in England might think it 
 hard work to be up and out every morning by 5 a.m. to attend the 
 muster of coolies, and preach to them before starting on a four or 
 five hours' walk, beneath a blazing sun, over steep hills without one 
 scrap of shade. Then the native Christians on the estate, and 
 perhaps some in the nearest village, must be visited, and candidates 
 for baptism or confirmation examined and taught, and the catechist, 
 if there be one, must be cheered by a talk about his w'ork, and on 
 the morrow the same round must be repeated on the next estate. 
 And so each day of the week repeats itself till Sunday, when there is 
 a Tamil service for as many coolies as can be mustered, and English 
 service for the planters, many of whom come a very long way to be 
 present. 
 
 vSmall chapels are indeed scattered at wide intervals over the 
 mountain districts where the plantations chiefly lie, and in these two 
 of the Diocesan clergy minister regularly, and others occasionally, 
 but many estates are so remote that they are only visited at very rare 
 intervals. When we think of the multii)licity of church-going luxuries 
 offered for our selection in this country, we can perhaps realise how 
 very much neglected we should feel— in fact, how easily we might 
 lose the mere habit of Sunday observance — were our religious privi- 
 leges limited to two or three meetings in a coffee-store or a drawing- 
 room in the course of a year. Certainly it does seem a very unequal 
 division of the Church's workers which leaves so wide a field with 
 such limited pastoral care. 
 
 Even Sunday does not necessarily bring rest from travel ; for 
 instance, the native clergyman (Tamil) at Pelmadulla holds an
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEYLON 591 
 
 English service at 8 a.m., and then one in Tamil, after which he either 
 travels twelve miles to hold an English service at Ratnapura, or to 
 some other district. But in truth, neither clergy nor people spare 
 themselves in this respect, the distance which some of these people 
 walk to be present at a service being almost incredible ; as, for 
 instance, at Rackwane, in the south, to which some of the congrega- 
 tion were in the habit of walking fifteen miles every Sunday, till a 
 Christian conductor undertook to hold service in one of the coffee- 
 stores. (The Principal of Trinity College, Kandy, mentions that one 
 of his late pupils travelled 130 miles in order to be present at the 
 early morning service on New Year's Day.) 
 
 As a matter of course, tlie work of this Mission is greatly helped 
 or impeded by the attitude of the authorities on each estate. In 
 some cases the planters themselves, or their .superintendents, take a 
 hearty interest in its progress, and I have recently heard of one who, 
 being present at the baptism of five of his owai coolies, addressed 
 them in their own tongue, in such plain, manly words as they were 
 not likely to forget, especially exhorting them so to live that they 
 might be the means of bringing others also to Jesus. That speaker's 
 words are so happily illustrated in his own life, that one of his 
 Singhalese neighbours expressed a devout hope that he may eventually 
 become a Buddha ! 
 
 Happily, within the last few years, a considerable number of the 
 planters have awakened to the duty and privilege of thus exerting a 
 strong personal influence on the men in their employ, while on other 
 estates much is done by earnest Christian Kanganis, i.e., coolie over- 
 seers, who supplement the work of the catechist by reading the 
 service on intermediate Sundays, or in some cases by holding prayer- 
 meetings (for many catechists have charge of a very much larger 
 district than any one man can work satisfactorily). In at least one 
 district the habit of family evening-prayer is now general amongst the 
 Christians, though to assemble in the morning is impossible, owing 
 to the early hour when work begins. 
 
 On the other hand, where the Kangani is a heathen and antagon- 
 istic to the Christians, he can greatly impede the work of the catechist 
 and embitter the lives of the converts. Thus, in one district, where 
 till recently there were four Christian Kanga/iis, a change in the 
 management of the estates has led to their being all re[)laced by 
 heathens— a very grievous matter for the little band of converts whose 
 taskmasters they are.
 
 592 TIFO HAPPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 A considerable number of conversions have been entirely due to 
 the influence and persuasion of Christian fellow-coolies. This has 
 notably been the case in Uda Pussellawa, where, about twelve years 
 ago, a Canarese man and his wife were converted. They had for 
 many years been working on Ceylon estates, and probably had a large 
 acquaintance among their fellows. Every evening since their baptisrr, 
 when the long day's work is done, they have assembled in their house 
 as many as they could collect for Bible-reading and prayer, and it is 
 mainly due to this effort that a congregation of upwards of a hundred 
 persons now meet for worship every Sunday in a pretty stone church, 
 towards the building of which ' Isaac ' and his wife contributed the 
 first hundred rupees. The congregation prove their zeal by walking 
 from six to ten miles from other estates, no small effort on this their 
 only day of rest. These are only poor coolies, but somehow, I fancy 
 that in the Great Hereafter many of us who now daily say (I doubt 
 if we as often x&2i\\y pray that oft-said prayer) Thy Kingdom Come, 
 will vainly wish that in all our lives we had done as much to prepare 
 the way for our Lord's coming as these humble folk have done. 
 
 Certainly it is enough to make us all think, to note how often a 
 few words of Scripture or of exhortation have so impressed poor 
 ignorant heathen Tongans, Fijians, or Chinamen, that they have 
 returned to their own villages and endured persecution for years 
 staunchly, never resting till they have persuaded others, and so each 
 has become the nucleus of a church ; whereas we, on whom all 
 teaching and Christian privileges have been lavished from our cradles, 
 what have we individually ever done to induce one from without the 
 fold to enter ? 
 
 I never hear the story of Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian eunuch 
 (whom so many white men would contemptuouly have described as 
 ' only a nigger,' but to whom alone the prophet was bidden to convey 
 the Divine assurance of safety amid all the horrors of the capture of 
 Jerusalem and the slaughter of all the princes and nobles of Judah '), 
 without a thought of that day of surprises, when so many great lords, 
 temporal and spiritual, will have to take the lowest places, and others 
 who are now last and least will find themselves first and greatest in 
 The Kingdom. 
 
 In another case recently reported, eighteen persons came forward 
 to ask for baptism, all of whom had been very carefully instructed by 
 another Christian couple. Thirteen of these had walled thirl y miles 
 1 Jer. xx.wiii. 7, 8 ; and Jt r. xxxix. 6, 7, and ^6-18,
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEYLON 593 
 
 through a continuous downpour of rain to present themselves to the 
 clergyman on his visiting the district. Of course all candidates are 
 subject to most searching examination to prove their sincerity, and 
 the answer of one suggested how truly he had grasped the principle 
 of the new life. ' Doubtless,' he said, ' some may be Christians in 
 name only, but such have only joined Christianity without being 
 united to Christ.' 
 
 Of course the difficulty of obtaining a permanent influence over 
 these coolies is greatly enhanced by their migratory habits, which often 
 take them from one district to another, or back to India, before much 
 appreciable good has been done. Nevertheless, some of the workers 
 are convinced that, even as the dawn advances to high noon — im- 
 perceptibly — so the Light is radiating silently but surely ; and though 
 as yet only about fifteen hundred of the Tamil coolies now on the 
 Isle have received baptism, a considerable number have returned as 
 Christians to their own country, and very many listen with earnest 
 attention, and some say they are convinced of the truth of the Gospel, 
 but dare not face the anger of their relations should they openly em- 
 brace Christianity. It would be difficult to find a more remarkable 
 proof of their goodwill than is shown by the generosity with which 
 they sometimes contribute to purely Christian objects, as, for instance, 
 the building of a substantial church at Rackwane, where the congre- 
 gation is very small and very poor, and about three-fourths of the 
 requisite sum has been given by heathen overseers and coolies ! 
 
 Among what I may call ' insensible influences ' for good are some 
 exceedingly popular Christian lyrics, something in the style of ' The 
 old, old story,' composed by a Tamil poet. They are Christian 
 stories told in the native style of poetry, and set to native tunes, 
 which find great favour with the people. Many of the converts who 
 cannot read, know these by heart, and their companions, attracted by 
 the melody, learn them also ; and so the story is sung, and often well 
 sung, by those who as yet know little of its meaning. Thus one 
 whose heart is in his Master's work, chanced to be travelling by coach 
 to Kandy, when one of the passengers commenced singing Hindoo 
 songs so cheerily that his companions begged him to continue. One 
 at least of his hearers was considerably astonished when the next song 
 selected was one of the most beautiful of these lyrics, ' Jesus carrying 
 His Cross,' a text which furnished the subject for earnest words to an 
 attentive audience of Hindoos and Buddhists. 'J'he singer said he
 
 594 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 had loai'nt the lyric from hearing it sung by a Roman CathoHc convert 
 in a distant part of the country. 
 
 When we remember that in the Jaffna peninsula alone the three 
 Missions have 15,000 children in training, all of whom are taught to 
 sing sacred stories, it is evident what a far-reaching agency for good 
 this must prove. The schools have periodical concerts, when all 
 the relatives come to hear and admire, and the children and Bible- 
 women teach the mothers, who like to sing them in their own homes, 
 so that they are gradually replacing the very objectionable mytho- 
 logical songs even in homes which are not yet altogether Christian. 
 
 To those who have not noted elsewhere how often a mighty tree 
 grows from a tiny seed, the feeble first-fruits of work in some large 
 centres of heathenism may seem almost contemptible. Thus in the 
 town of Kurunegalla, the Tamil Christian congregation consists of 
 three very poor families ; one is that of a fisherman, another of a man 
 who climbs palm-trees to draw ' toddy,' while the third householder 
 is a road-coolie, who at his baptism selected the name of Zachariah, 
 his wife naturally assuming that of Elizabeth. The latter tends a 
 flock of sheep— a few sheep we must assume, since at night she folds 
 them all in the largest room of her little hut, she and her husband 
 contriving to stow themselves away in the other room, which measures 
 5 feet by 6 feet ! Truly a tiny flock, both pastoral and spiritual, but 
 as regards the latter, its shepherd is satisfied that it will erelong prove 
 the nucleus of an ever-widening congregation. 
 
 I must repeat that I am speaking only of the Tamil Christians of 
 Kurunegalla, the Singhalese and Burgher congregations being of 
 course quite distinct. Of the former, a recently-acquired member is 
 a native headman from an outlying village, converted through the 
 instrumentality of his brother. These two men, being the only 
 Christians in that neighbourhood, have had to face considerable 
 opposition ; indeed, before his baptism this young man had given 
 very strong proof of his determination, in resolutely refusing to offer 
 incense in the great temple at Kandy, where he was obliged to be 
 present in his official capacity ; his refusal gave great offence to his 
 superiors. To those who can realise the scene within that beautiful 
 temple — the crowd of devout worshippers bearing their offerings, the 
 gorgeously dressed headmen, the throng of yellow-robed priests 
 urging the recreant to compliance with this simple ceremony — only 
 the burning of a liille incense— such an incident suggests a picture of 
 wondrous interest.
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK' IN CEYLON 595 
 
 Indeed, in all Oriental scenes the picturesque element presents 
 Itself at every turn in a manner undreamt of by those who insensibly 
 illustrate these outlines from their own Western thoughts. Thus in 
 the case of the tiny Tamil congregation of which I spoke just now, 
 the reader whose mind sees only three very poor English families 
 would conjure up a very different picture from the little group of 
 turbaned brown men and of women whose brilliantly-coloured drapery 
 is worn so very effectively, and whose poverty must be dire indeed 
 if it forbids the display of rings and bangles, always in good taste, 
 however base the metal. Even the sheep lying in the shade on the 
 verandah of that humble hut are quaint lanky animals with long 
 drooping ears, very much more attractive to the artist than those 
 approved of by British farmers. 
 
 While the Tamil Coolie Mission seeks to reach the Hindoo 
 immigrants, a corresponding organisation known as the Kandvan 
 Itinerancy works over nearly the same area of hill-country in the 
 three central provinces. It appeals especially to the Singhalese 
 village population, supplying (to the best of its ability) Christian 
 schoolmasters and catechists, under the superintendence of two 
 European and two Singhalese clergymen of the Church of England. 
 
 But considering over what a vast expanse of mountainous and 
 forest country these four men must travel in order occasionally to 
 minister to their widely-scattered flock, we can well believe that 
 this Mission also suffers from being * under-manned.' Nevertheless, 
 a wide-spread influence for good has been established ; in many 
 districts a spirit of interest and inquiry now replaces the dull apathy 
 of sleepy Buddhism, and a multitude of tiny congregations form so 
 many little spots of leaven in the great mass of heathenism. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the paths of the converts are always 
 paths of peace, for even the non-persecuting Buddhists contrive to 
 make life very unpleasant to relations who venture to differ from 
 them ; young converts especially are occasionally removed from 
 school and beaten to induce them to kneel once more at Buddhist 
 altars, and the dread of being so treated prevents many from expressing 
 their convictions. For instance, two youths, who ventured to say 
 they wished to become Christians, were at once compelled by their 
 parents to assume the yellow rolie and prepare for the Buddhist 
 priesthood. 
 
 The contemplative life, however, sometimes results in a more 
 absolute conversion, as in tlie case of a lad who had for four years
 
 596 TlVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 attended the Mission-school at Baddigama, when he was inveigled 
 away by the priest of a neighbouring village, who painted in glowing 
 colours the easy life and abundant food of the priesthood, and the 
 honour and homage he would receive from the people would he but 
 take upon him the vows of Buddha. The influence of the parents 
 was secured by the promise of an annual gift of twelve bags of rice 
 from the temple. So the lad yielded, and was duly shaven and 
 invested with the sacred yellow robes, and for three years he con- 
 tinued in the service of the temple with an ever-reproachful con- 
 science. 
 
 At length his spiritual conflict was evident to all his companions, 
 and every means, fair and foul, was tried to hold him fast. Some 
 tried bribes, and one man threatened to stab him if he would not say 
 that Buddha and the priests were the most high refuge. But the 
 lad gained courage, and throwing off the yellow robes, he returned 
 to his first teachers, and after due probation was baptized and con- 
 firmed, and is now a communicant. His parents were present at his 
 baptism, and there seemed every reason to hope that they would 
 follow his example. 
 
 In various parts of the Isle men who were once priests of Buddha 
 have likewise found the True Light, and are now working steadfastly 
 under Christ's banner. 
 
 At the present moment, when a leaning to Buddhism and its twin- 
 brother Agnosticism has become a sort of fashion in England, it is 
 interesting to note the reasons for renouncing the former which are 
 given by men born and bred in that faith. One says he does so 
 ' because Buddha nowhere says a word about the Eternal God ; all 
 things in heaven and earth declare His wisdom and power, but as 
 concerns loving, obeying, and believing in Him, Buddha is dumb. 
 Hence communion with God in prayer, which is the very life of the 
 soul, is absolutely ignored, since, according to this teaching, there is 
 no one to whom prayer can be offered — no one to hear and no one 
 to answer.' 
 
 An old man about seventy-five^ycars of age said that all through 
 his long life he has been seeking rest. He wrote out sacred books, 
 he gave large alms, and performed long pilgrimages to Adam's Peak 
 and Anuradhapura and other holy shrines, hoping thus to heap up 
 merit ; but it was all to no purpose till at last Christ came to him (for 
 truly, he says, it was not that he had sought Christ), and in Him he 
 found the rest he craved. The old man was one of a congregation
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEYLON 597 
 
 of upwards of seventy communicants in a village where a few years 
 ago there was not one Christian. 
 
 Now note the reply of a young convert, who, when urged by his 
 father to return to his ancestral faith, replied, ' I cannot go back to 
 Buddhism. I must believe that there is a Creator of the world. I 
 need forgiveness of sin, and there is no Saviour, no forgiveness in 
 Buddhism. There is no one who has the power to forgive, therefore, 
 everyone must of necessity endure all the consequences of his sins. 
 I want to be happy after death, and there is no hope in Buddhism — 
 but in Christianity I find all these.' The latter is the son of a rigidly 
 Buddhist family, and had been brought from another province by the 
 priest at Kurunegalla on purpose to teach a school which he had 
 opened in opposition to that of the Mission. This young man's uncle 
 was sent for to reason with him, but instead of reclaiming the 
 wanderer, he confessed the validity of all his arguments, and presented 
 himself as a candidate for baptism. 
 
 It is also instructive to note that the aforesaid priest, in urging 
 his neighbours to withstand the teaching of 'those lying fools the 
 Christians,' instead of himself preaching pure Buddhism, recommends 
 the villagers to join the Society of Theosophists. There is, unfor- 
 tunately, no doubt that Buddhism has received a real impetus from 
 the example of certain foolish Europeans, who (most assuredly 
 lacking any personal knowledge of ' the Master ' whom they so 
 dishonour) have thrown in their lot with the teachers of so-called 
 Theosophy and Esoteric Buddhism — systems which those who 
 understand them best, classify as ' Bedlamite balderdash,' ' blatant 
 humbug,' and ' impudent imposture.' 
 
 I would shrink from quoting such expressions regarding any phase 
 of true Theosophy or ' Divine knowledge,' but the leaders of this 
 society in Ceylon (well aware that there could be no fellowship 
 between seekers after knowledge of God and the atheistic system of 
 Buddhism, which does not acknowledge any God) were wise in their 
 generation, and adopted as their title the Paramawignanartha, or 
 Supreme Knowledge Society. Consequently it embraces whatever 
 may be the individual ideal of highest good, whether it be how best 
 to enjoy this world, and how to get on in it and get wealth, or how 
 best to attain to Nirvana and the extinction of all desire.' 
 
 1 Taking Theosoi)hy even at its best, as now preached in Europe, an unbiassec^ 
 student of its teaching writes : 'There is no note wliich vibrates more constantly i|^ 
 fhc soul of every tiue man than the prayer, "Lord, te nicrci'ul to mp a sinner ! " , . ,
 
 598 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 I think the European disciples of these scliools would be rather 
 startled were they to realise the practical working of the systems for 
 which they are content to abjure Christianity. For instance, in the 
 neighbourhood of the Mission-station at Cotta, Colonel Olcott 
 succeeded in stirring up the Luddhist priests to such hostility, that 
 for a while the attendance at the Christian schools was sensibly 
 diminished. In the village of Udumulla the priests under this in- 
 fluence opened a rival school, and pronounced a very singular form 
 of excommunication against all who should persist in sending their 
 cliildren to the Mission-schools. Such offenders were to be fined a 
 rupee and a half, and were further admonished that ' the dhobie shall 
 not wash their clothes, the native doctors shall not attend any of them 
 in sickness, the devil-dancers shall not perforin demon ceremonies for 
 them (.'), and the astrologers shall not consult the planets for them on 
 the birth of their children^ or concerning marriages and other important 
 events ! ' 
 
 We need scarcely wonder that those who Ikuc escaped from this 
 debased system are proof against all arguments of the Theosoi)hists. 
 Colonel Olcott did his utmost to persuade a TJuddhist priest who had 
 become a Christian to resume the jellow robe. ^Vhen he had ex- 
 hausted his arguments, the ex-priest replied, with more force than 
 polish, ' I am not a dog that I should return to my vomit. Pray 
 spare your pity. If you can believe that there is no right, no wrong, 
 no soul, no conscience, no responsibility, no God, no judgment, you 
 need for yourself all the pity you possess and more.' 
 
 Yet it is to this system that so great an impetus has been given 
 even in Europe and America by the agency of so beautiful a writer as 
 Sir Edwin Arnold, who, in his passionate admiration for the good 
 and noble, depicts things not as they really are, but as he would have 
 them to be ; for truly what he calls 'The Light of Asia' has most 
 practically proved to be only bewildering darkness. 
 
 Surely such an ovation as was accorded to him by the Buddhists 
 when he visited Ceylon in i8S6 was doubtful honour for a Christian. 
 At one Buddhist college near Colombo well-nigh three thousand 
 Buddhists assembled to testify their gratitude to the poet who has 
 painted their leader in colours all borrowed from the life and teaching 
 of Him Who is the true Lioirr ok tut: wori.I). The honoured 
 
 'i '> tlicU hcnitfelt cry I do not find any answer in Theosophy. I find, on tlie contrary, 
 an almost exultant assertion that Gou is not a IJeing with a Fatlier's heart, that for 
 sin there is no expiation, and for tlie sinner no forgiveness,'
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEYLON 599 
 
 guest was placed on a raised platform beneath an honorific canopy, 
 while Buddhist ecclesiastics robed in yellow satin chanted chorals, 
 litanies, and anthems in Pali and Singhalese, Sir Edwin replying in 
 Sanskrit. 
 
 One of those best acquainted with practical Buddhism in Ceylon 
 describes it as ' the most cunningly-devised system of atheism and 
 negation, of idol-worship, tree and serpent worship, demon-worship, 
 and pessimism which has ever held the human mind in bondage ' — 
 a system exactly answering to the awful Scriptural summary, ' Having 
 no hope, and without God in the world.' 
 
 Archdeacon Farrar says, ' Buddhism, as it appears, not in " The 
 Light of Asia," but in the original "Life of Gautama," is but a philo- 
 sophy of despair, which knows no immortality, no conscience, and 
 no God. Humanity has groped in blindness after its Creator; in 
 Christ alone has it learned the love of His Fatherhood and the riches 
 of His salvation.' 
 
 Here are the two creeds. The Buddhist Gospel of Misery teaches 
 that all is vanity and all is suffering, and that complete cessation of 
 craving for existence is the only cessation of suffering, and, therefore, 
 the one thing to strive after. 
 
 He ' who is able to keep us from falling ' says, ' Be ye perfect, 
 even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.' And His Apostle 
 says, ' Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is 
 God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good 
 pleasure.' And, as the goal for which we strive, he says, ' And so 
 
 SH.'\LL YE EVER BE WITH THE LORD.' 
 
 Christ bestows now on all who truly give themselves to Him the 
 gift of a spiritual life, one with His own, "which shall exist in conscious, 
 perfect union with Him throughout eternity.' 
 
 Can anything more pitiful be conceived than that human beings 
 born within the pale of the Christian Church can deliberately sacrifice 
 the privilege of individual personal communion with the ever-present 
 Almighty Friend who cares for each one of us, in exchange for an 
 utterly irresponsive negation— a theory of perfection only to be 
 attained through self-conquest, at which poor weak human beings are 
 advised to aim through ages of lonely life-long struggles extending 
 over many transmigrations, without one prayerful look to the Divine 
 
 1 Jesus says, ' He that hatli the Son iiai h Likk. He that hath not the Son of 
 God hath not Lnn:. I am come that they nrght have Life, and that they miglit 
 have it abundantly. Where I am there shall also My servant be,"
 
 6oo TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 Helper who alone can keep our wayward wills from wandering after 
 all manner of evil ? And all this in order to gain the cessation of 
 their individual life. 
 
 Buddha made no offer of ihc Divine Gift of Life, for it was not 
 his to bestow.' Of Christ it is true now as of old, that 'as many as 
 receive Him, to them gives He power to become the sons of God, 
 who shall dwell with Him for ever and be like Him. Buddha offers 
 no power nor help of any sort. He merely gives rules how so 
 absolutely to conquer every natural instinct, that, after untold ages of 
 weary agonising, men may attain to a cessation of their very undesir- 
 able individual existence, in other words, to Nirvana, />., the condition 
 of a flame after it has been blown out. The highest ideal of bliss is 
 the attainment of perfection in the colourless, loveless condition of a 
 dewdrop falling into the ocean, thenceforth to exist only as merged in 
 the Infinite. It is not a very inviting goal for which to agonise, except 
 as a means of escape from the prolonged miseries of innumerable 
 transmigrations. Surely not worth even a passing thought from any 
 one who has received Christ's gracious offer of immortality — His own 
 gift of Eternal Life in Himself. 
 
 I think if good Prince Gautama had been born 600 years later, 
 and within hearing of the truth as revealed in Jesus Christ, he would 
 assuredly have been the most earnest and devoted of His apostles, 
 and he would now be spared the grief of seeing dim-eyed men turn 
 from the fulness of the True Light to grope after the pale glimmer 
 which, when he kindled it in the black night of unmitigated idolatry, 
 was so eagerly blessed, even as the weary watcher prizes the feeble 
 rushlight if he has nothing better ; but candle and lamp alike pale 
 before the glow of the Eastern dawn. 
 
 To us Christians the whole of life is glorified and gladdened by 
 the consciousness of living union with our ever-present loving Lord, 
 and the certainty (too often proved in our own experience to leave 
 any room for doubt) of His sympathy and care for all that concerns 
 
 1 When Prince Gautama was born the world had still six centuries to wait ere man 
 might again have access to the Tree of Life (the tree of which, according to the old 
 allegory, Eve failed to eat, and the approach to which was thenceforth guarded, lest, 
 having sinned, she should nevertheless eat of its fruit and live for ever in estrangement 
 from God) ; and so the Redeemer reveals Himself not only as the Life, but as the 
 Life-Giver. ' To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for . . . im- 
 mortality. He giveth Eternal Life' ' To him that ovcrcometh will I give to eat of the 
 Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." ' This is Life Eternal, 
 |hat they may know Thee, the Only True God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.'
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEYLON . 6or 
 
 us. But for the Buddhist there is no such companionship, only 
 lonely striving after a perfection unattainable to the weakness of un- 
 helped humanity. 
 
 He seeks absolute perfection here. The Christian knows his life 
 here to be but the embryo of what it shall be ; of the next stage he 
 knows no more than the dull grub, working out its little round of ex- 
 istence, dreams in what perfection of life and radiancy of colour it will 
 emerge from its chrysalis coffin. Our life here is that of the chick 
 cradled within the egg-shell — a life hid (but hid with Christ in God), 
 and even now being formed and developed, soon to burst the shell 
 and pass through whatever stages may yet be needed to bring us to 
 perfection. 
 
 ' It doth not yet appear what we shall be,' any more than a vast 
 collection of birds' eggs of all nations can suggest the myriad forms 
 of beauty which they represent — the soaring eagles, swift sea-birds, 
 jewelled humming-birds flashing in the sunlight, too quick for sight 
 to follow, bright birds of paradise, all varied types of radiant plumage 
 and musical song, and all developed from a lot of empty egg-shells. 
 So from the soul-cases in which we now dwell shall go forth the living 
 us to be perfected, each after his kind, and dwell for ever in His 
 presence, which is fulness of joy. 
 
 Of course one radical difference between the striving after per- 
 fection enjoined on the Christian and on Buddhists, Parsees, Brahmans 
 and Mahommedans lies in the motive for good works. The Christian 
 knows he is bound to do his very utmost as a thank-offering for the 
 free gift bestowed on him, whereas, in all other creeds, the one idea is 
 that of purchasing salvation by works. Multiply acts of self-denial, 
 external rites, pilgrimages, prayers (though Buddhism ignores Cod), 
 and by these means weave a robe of self-righteousness — the dearest 
 of all to human pride. 
 
 In the case of Buddhism, repeat the name of Buddha as a per- 
 petual charm. You can never say it often enough ; so go on and on 
 all your life. If you could i)e sure that you had thus, or by any other 
 means, acquired sufficient merit, there would be no occasion to pay 
 the monks for reciting endless acts of devotion (which cannot be 
 prayers) on your behalf, to get your soul out of the many purgatories 
 in which devils will delight in tormenting it. Oh ! the hopelessness 
 of such a creed, with its weary prospect of successive transmigrations, 
 each carrying forward the account of good or ill from the previous 
 state of g.xistencc.
 
 6o2 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLOX 
 
 Kandy, as might be expected in the city of the sacred Tooth, has 
 as yet proved a rocky soil, unfavourable to the growth of Christian 
 seed ; and though the Episcopal Church, the AVesleyans, and the 
 J>aptists are all at work, it has been well said that the atmosphere is as 
 full of heathenism as it is of heat. Seeing the very important bearing 
 on this subject of female education, it is somewhat remarkable that, 
 with the exception of the Wesleyan industrial schools for poor girls, 
 no female boarding-school should have been established in the 
 mountain capital. Mission-agents send their daughters from here to 
 Cotta, but for those of influential Kandyan gentlemen no such 
 education is available, though it has been proved that wherever such 
 schools are opened, parents willingly send their daughters, though 
 well aware that a considerable number invariably embrace Christianity. 
 This subject is one of increasing importance, not merely on account 
 of the influence which might thus be acquired in many influential 
 homes, but as the surest hope of providing suitable Wives for such 
 converts as may be won from among the high-caste Kandyan boys 
 who are now being trained at Trinity College, Kand)'. 
 
 vSuch is the anxiety for a good English education, that the parents 
 of these lads and young men are eager to secure it, notwithstanding 
 a well-grounded impression that it will probably result in the renuncia- 
 tion of Buddhism. The college is under the direction of two English 
 clergymen and a staff of ten masters. The two hundred day-scholars 
 and the forty boarders are of all denominations, but the majority are 
 professedly Christian, as are also all the masters ; and when we* hear 
 of these scholars holding prayer-meetings by themselves, and that in 
 one year eight of the senior students dedicated themselves to active 
 Christian work, it is evident that the tone of the college must be 
 encouraging to any Buddhist lad who is inclined to think seriously on 
 the subject. 
 
 I have already spoken ' of the great school at Cotta, commenced 
 by the Church Missionary Society in a.d. 1822, with its boarding- 
 school for girls and training-institution for native cleigy. 
 
 In addition to these varied duties, the Principal of Cotta, the Rev. 
 R. T. Dowbiggin, has also the general superintendence of upwards of 
 fifty village-schools, twenty-seven for girls and twenty-five for boys. 
 These are scattered over an area of five hundred square miles, and 
 have an average daily attendance of 1,100 girls and 1,600 boys, most 
 of whom are lUiddhists. This extension of girls' schools is deemed 
 
 1 Pa ere 108.
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEYLON 603 
 
 a most satisfactory feature, full of promise for the future, were it only 
 for the breaking down of caste prejudice. As in the schools for 
 Hindoo girls in the Northern Provinces, so here Singhalese girls of 
 four distinct castes now sit on the same benches and learn the same 
 lessons. This result has been achieved with far greater facility in the 
 boys' schools than in the girls'. But the fact that girls should be 
 allowed to live in the houses of Christians, and eat food cooked by 
 them, proves that caste in Ceylon is a less grievous yoke than it is in 
 Northern India. 
 
 This caste question, however, does prove a very serious difficulty, 
 not only among the Tamil people, who, of course, keep up the regular 
 Hindoo caste distinctions, but also among the Singhalese. One of 
 their own pastors, the Rev. L. Liesching, writes, that although born 
 and bred in Ceylon, he could not have believed how strong its in- 
 fluence really is. He says that even the Duriya (low-caste) Christians, 
 on whose behalf he has to combat the prejudice of their higher-caste 
 neighbours, show just as much unwillingness to associate with those 
 who are of inferior caste to themselves. And as regards the highest 
 castes, this is undoubtedly the greatest obstacle to their conversion. 
 This is the more remarkable. as caste is not a sacred institution among 
 the Singhalese, for Buddhism does not recognise any such distinction 
 of rank, and the Buddhist priests, to whom all yield reverence, are 
 admitted from every caste. Here the distinction is simply social ; 
 nevertheless the line of demarcation is so marked, that no amount of 
 wealth can overcome it, or induce the native aristocracy to admit a 
 man from a lower caste to social intercourse, far less to intermarriage. 
 
 Thus, of all the races who people Ceylon, the Moormen alone are 
 apparently free from caste trammels, at least I suppose they are as 
 free as average Christians, which, after all, is not saying much, 
 especially in free America, where the general interpretation of social 
 equality seems to lie in being the equal of all superiors and the im- 
 measurable superior of all of lower degree. 
 
 The Church Missionary Society did not commence work in 
 Coloml)0 till 1850. Three years later a large church was erected on 
 the Galle Face Esplanade, in which English, Singhalese, and Tamil 
 services have been constantly held for the three races. Here the 
 Society also has district schools- for boys and girls, and a boarding- 
 school for Tamil Christian girls. It also carries on all manner of 
 evangelistic work among Hindoos, Mahommedans, Buddhists, and 
 Portuguese.
 
 6o4 TIVO HArrV YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 The work amongst the latter is most discouraging, the majority 
 being so steeped in hopeless poverty that their life seems to have lost 
 all spring ; and as Ceylon has no poor laws, all such are dependent 
 for relief on a voluntary association called the Friend-in-Need Society, 
 which, at best, can merely mitigate the sufferings of the most needy. 
 Though of Portuguese descent, many of these poor Burghers, living 
 in the lanes and alleys of Slave Island, are absolutely heathen ; so 
 the Wesleyans have latterly commenced holding services in Portuguese 
 for their benefit, while the Church of England endeavours to reach 
 some by means of a ragged-school and special services in Singhalese, 
 which the majority can understand better than English. Their own 
 language is a very debased Portuguese. Of course the well-to-do 
 Dutch Burghers form a large and very important class of the com- 
 munity. As may be guessed by a glance round any of the churches 
 one may chance to enter, they fill all sorts of responsible positions, 
 but the Portuguese seem never to have got over the crushing oppression 
 to which their ancestors were subjected by the Dutch, and to this day 
 few rise high in the social scale. 
 
 In the Southern Province, where the population is principally 
 Singhalese, and consequently Buddhist, the Church of England 
 Mission is carried on chiefly by the S.P.G. and Diocesan clergy, the 
 only station of the Church Missionary Society being that at Bad- 
 digama, which was commenced about a.d. 1820. Here one European 
 and two native clergymen superintend the work of fifty male and 
 female lay teachers. Baddigama is a large district, extending as far 
 north as Bentota, and including a population of 100,000 souls, of 
 whom only 526 are as yet professedly Christian, Twenty-six church- 
 schools, with an average attendance of about sixty-seven children, are, 
 however, so many centres of good influence, though there are villages 
 where the schoolmaster himself is as yet literally the only Christian, 
 ^'et even in these the people seem quite willing to listen, and many 
 I)rofess to have lost all belief in Buddhism. 
 
 These villages are generally in the poorest districts, which have 
 been almost abandoned by the Buddhist priests, and the temples left to 
 fall into decay. This points to the fact that in the low country there are 
 few rich temple endowments in land, such as were bestowed on the 
 priesthood by the Kandyan kings, and which make the priests of the 
 Central Province altogether independent of the people. That the 
 people themselves desire education is certain, and at one of these 
 ]ow-cpuntry villages the Bana Maduwa (Buddhist preaching-[)lace) was
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK: LV CEYLON 605 
 
 offered to the Mission by the village headmen, to be converted into 
 a Christian school ; and when this was declined because it adjoined 
 \\\(t pa7isala, i.e., temple-school, they at once erected a new building 
 for the purpose. 
 
 It is, however, to be feared that the present ' Buddhist revival,' so 
 diligently fostered by Europeans, will awaken much priestly activity 
 in regard to long-neglected schools. Thus, in September 1890, a 
 Buddhist school was opened at Welligama, the temple south of Gallcj 
 which was endowed by ' the Leper King,' apparently for no other 
 purpose than to draw away the children from the Wesleyan and 
 S.P.G. schools there. Sixty were allured from the former, and 
 twenty from the latter, and a few days later a dastardly attempt was 
 made to burn down the Wesleyan schools. 
 
 That a period of renewed struggle and difficulty may be at hand 
 seems only too probable. Yet, on the whole, there is good ground 
 for encouragement. In summarising the present position of Ceylon 
 in regard to Christianity, it must be borne in mind that, apart from 
 actual conversions, a very much wider work has been accomplished 
 in the softening of prejudices, the general loosening of the far-reach- 
 ing roots both of Buddhism and Brahmanism, and especially in 
 awakening a real interest in religious questions in place of the 
 former utter apathy. This last change is, doubtless, due to the amount 
 of careful Scriptural training which has for so many years been 
 imparted to many thousand children in the schools of all the 
 Protestant Missions. These at present number over forty thousand. 
 
 Consequently, in any district where Mission-schools have been at 
 work for any length of time, a Christian preacher may be sure that 
 many of his hearers have some previous understanding of the subject, 
 which in itself is an immense help. Moreover, Christian teachers are 
 more and more supplanting the heathen teachers in all the schools, so 
 that all influence is in the right direction. 
 
 It is quite evident that the way is now open for real progress, if 
 only the Mission-field were provided with a sufficient working -staff. 
 Whether these can be supplied must depend in a great measure on 
 the pecuniary support placed at the disposal of the various working 
 societies. Of Ceylon, as of so many other lands, it must be said, 
 * The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few.' 
 
 From the present position of Buddhism, it is evident that every 
 month of delay in occupying any fresh Mission-field in Ceylon will 
 increase the difficulties and diminish the prospect of success ; there-
 
 6o6 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 fore, it is surely the plain duty of English Christians to rouse them- 
 selves to a resolute effort on behalf of the beautiful Isle where such 
 a multitude of England's sons are striving to earn their living. 
 
 Now here, it seems to me, is one of the most practical bits of 
 direct work that could well be found. There lies the beautiful land, 
 with, IN ONE sin(;le district, tens of thousands of neglected 
 villagers, weary of their own dark ignorance, and ready to be taught 
 by whoever will first enter the field. Earnest workers who have gladly 
 devoted their lives and consecrated every energy to ploughing and 
 sowing in neighbouring districts, look longingly on this great field 
 which now lies white to the harvest, and from their lonely stations 
 they send home to rich Christian England such a cry for help in this 
 great need as must surely arouse the most indifferent to a true under- 
 standing of their privilege in being allowed to help such a work from 
 those funds which we know we each hold in trust, to be accounted 
 for hereafter, as we so often need to remind ourselves, as we say 
 'Both riches and honour come from Thee, and of Thine own do we 
 give Thee.' 
 
 Our Master has deputed us to offer to all men throughout the 
 whole world His priceless gift of Spiritual Life ; and yet there are 
 millions to whom His message of love has never been delivered, 
 because they to whom He has entrusted His talents of gold and silver 
 are either squandering them on themselves, or hoarding them for 
 other purposes than that of sending messengers to carry this great 
 Light to the nations who still dwell in the darkness of heathenism. 
 
 The funds at the disposal of the various societies being quite 
 insufficient to supply the means of livelihood for even the native 
 catechists, schoolmasters, and Bible-women so sorely needed for the 
 work, it is evident that Europeans possessed of sufficient private 
 means to support themselves would be especially welcome. Surely 
 there must be some — and many are needed — who will recognise in 
 this glorious work for eternity a better use for God-given talents than 
 that of shaping the pleasantest career in England. 
 
 Why should not two friends who realise the true purpose of their 
 lives agree that whereas their companions are starting in couples in 
 search of big game in far countries, they too will start together as 
 fishers of men, to cast the (iospcl-net in waters teeming with life ? 
 Assuredly in no other career will they find so true a springof joy and 
 gladness for their own lives as in this ceaseless effort to draw all 
 around them to the knowlcd</e and love of their Saviour.
 
 CnRISTIAN WORK IN CEYLON 607 
 
 And of all Mission-fields, few offer greater attractions than this 
 beautiful Isle, with its mountains and forests, its bold crags and 
 picturesque rivers, its gorges and waterfalls, its lower hills and wide 
 verdant j)lains. Furthermore, as compared with such vast Mission- 
 fields as China or Africa, this has the charm of a simple language, a 
 people gracious and kindly to Europeans, the protection of the Union 
 Jack, and the possibility of at any time securing a day with some 
 fellow-countryman who will welcome the sound of his own mother- 
 tongue. 
 
 Here then are the inducements : — A healthy open-air life in a 
 lovely country, ploughing and sowing fields which assuredly cannot 
 prove barren, inasmuch as the Lord of the harvest is Himself with 
 His servants to direct their work ; and when the angel-reapers have 
 garnered their ripened grain, the patient sower will realise such 
 evejlasting gladness as all the fleeting honours of earth fail to 
 secure.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ABO 
 
 Aboriginal worship, 408, 410 
 
 Actors, Tamil, 261 
 
 Adahana Maluwa, a sanctuary, 216 
 
 Adam's Peak, 523 
 
 Adult baptisms, 365 
 
 Aetagalla, 497 
 
 Agnew, Miss Eliza, 559 
 
 Agnosticism, 588 
 
 Alexander the Great, 538 
 
 Alexandrite, 319 
 
 Allegalla Peak, life on, 500 ; footprint on, 
 
 ib. ; rain-storm on, 501 
 Alu-Vihara rock-temple, 239 
 Ambetteyos or barbers, outcasts, 380 
 Ambulam, 313 
 American Mission, 557 
 Ainhentia nobilis, 38 
 Ancestral worship great hindrance to 
 
 conversion, 587 
 Ant-eater and ant-lion, 337 
 Ants, red and black, 44, 82 
 — whit;, 43-45, 337; eat deal timber, 
 
 326 ; their foes, 337 ; their ravages on 
 
 tea-plants, 513 
 Anuradhapura, its tanks, 252, 257, 303 ; 
 
 origin of name, 264 ; its ruins, 267 ; 
 
 buried city, 278 ; history of, 283-285 ; 
 
 bo-tree at, 288-293 
 Arichandra, 261 
 Ark, sacred, 286, 314 
 Arnold, Sir Edwin, 598 
 Arrack, 418, 434, 470; trade, 437-439 ; 
 
 farms, 437, (Skinner on), 505 
 Arrows, of gods, 216 ; of Saman, 314 ; of 
 
 Maha-Sen, 398 
 Artist's difficulties, 186 
 Artocarpus incisa and iniegrifolia, 119 
 Ashes, of cow-dung, 343 ; of sandal wood, 
 
 use sanctioned by Rome, ib. 
 Astrologers, 197, 199, 598 
 Aukana Vihare, 266 
 Australian gums, 506, 514 
 
 Avissawella, 311 
 
 Axis, or spotted deer, 171, 346, 459 
 
 Badal-wanassa, 182 
 
 Baddegama, 430 
 
 Badulla, 330, 331 ; its church, 335 
 
 Baker, Sir Samuel, his farm on the Moon 
 Plains, 137 ; on honey as an industry, 
 152; on climbing elephants, 154; on 
 sambur hunting, 171 ; and the devil- 
 bird, 388 
 
 Balalu-wewa, 250, 258 
 
 Bamboo, gregarious flowering, 152 ; 
 gigantic, 190 
 
 Bana Samanala, 311 
 
 Banana plant, 32 
 
 Bandarawella, 330 
 
 Bandicoot, 513 
 
 Banyan-tree, H6 ; at Negombo, 104 ; on 
 the Nerbudda, 105 ; near Kalutara, 
 472 ; at Captain's Gardens, 475 
 
 Baptisms, adult, 365 
 
 Barber, Tamil, 27 
 
 Barnes, Sir Edward, 57 
 
 Barringtonia, 472 
 
 Bassawa-kulam tank, 252, 258 ; oldest, 
 
 303 
 Bats, nitre, 239, 303 
 Balticaloa, 362, 426 ; derivation of, 363 ; 
 
 the harbour-bar, 428 
 Batticotta College for Tamils, 565-570 
 Bears, 357, 459 
 Biche de iiier, 95, 397 
 Bees, 151 
 
 Belligama, sand village, 443 
 Bentota, 466 ; oysters, 468 
 Betel-chewing, 31, 32, 95 
 Bhuwaneka \\\h\\ IV., King, 499 
 Bible-women, 562 
 Bintenne, 372 
 Birds' nests, edible, 95, 397 
 
 R R
 
 6io 
 
 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLOA 
 
 BIS 
 
 Bishops of Colombo and Ceylon, 29, 37, 
 
 550 
 
 Blue-bells, 136 
 
 Blue Ribbon Army, 570 
 
 Boar, wild, 359, 360, 459 
 
 Boatmen, picturesque, 14, 87 
 
 Bolgoda Lake, 475 
 
 Botanical gardens, Hak-galla, 153 ; Pera- 
 deniya, 187-192; Henaratgoda, 192; 
 Anuradhapura, ib. ; Badulla, 192, 336 
 
 Bo-tree, sacred, 105, 288-293 '< prophecies 
 concerning, 290; cremation of branch, 
 291 ; of leaves, 292 
 
 Bow and arrows of gods, 216, 314 
 
 Branding cattle, 26 
 
 Brazen temple, 279, 280 
 
 Bread-fruit tree, 119 
 
 Bridge of boats, 57 
 
 Brownrigg, Sir Robert, 65 
 
 Buddha, his birthday, 69 ; as a roast 
 hare, 211 n. ; twenty-five Buddhas in 
 Ceylon, 290 n., 547; relics of Buddha, 
 273, 306 ; dreary negations of, 304 ; or 
 Christ ? 598-601 
 
 Buddhism, incorporates Hindooism, 50, 
 196, 211 ; is Atheism, 60, 576; and 
 State patronage, 62, 65, 69 ; and 
 serpent worship, 92 ; and Roman 
 Catholicism, 341-343 ; reasons given 
 for abjuring, 596-598 ; esoteric, 597 
 
 Buddhist, rival sects, 58 ; robe, how 
 worn, 59, 266 ; temporalities, 63 ; cos- 
 mology, 67 ; fighting priest, 72 ; 
 reverence for animal life, 157 ;/. ; 
 heavens, 296 ; stone railing, 297 
 
 Buffaloes, 109, 351, 353, 357, 359, 360, 
 402, 459 
 
 Bulan-kulum, 258 
 
 Bungalow, 41 ; temporary, 184, 334, 3S0, 
 402 ; beside a lake, 476 ; on Allegalla 
 Peak, 500 
 
 Bucna Vista Orphanage, 430 
 
 Burning lorest, 338, 339, 343, 344, 522 
 
 Buttercups, 136 
 
 Butterflies, 147, 381 ; Samanaliya, 531 
 
 Cable-rattans, 402 
 
 Cacao or chocolate-tree, 514 
 
 Cacti, 90, 93, 241, 345 
 
 Calico, white (royal cloth), 184, 209, 215, 
 
 314, 365, 380 
 Calpentyn, 93 
 Camphor, oil of, 46 
 Canals, 79 ; ancient, 258, 259 
 Candle-nut tree, 113, 114 
 Canoes, 13, 87 
 
 Cape Barberyn, westernmost land, 466 
 Car festival, 314, 326 
 Cashew bark, 300 
 
 COL 
 
 Cashew nuts, 96 
 Cassia, 49 
 
 — bark, 300 
 Cassia fistula, 299 
 
 Caste, 366 ; persecutions, 366-369 ; pre- 
 judices, 376 ; Singhalese, 377 ; fisher 
 subdivisions, 473 ; Singhalese, its 
 strength, 603 
 
 — and outcast, 377-379 
 Cat's-eye, 319 
 
 Cattle, humped, 27 
 
 — estate, 370, 371 
 Centipede, 83 
 
 Ceylon Rifles disbanded, 478 
 Chandivelle, 369 
 
 Chanks, temple trumpet, 183, 184 
 Chapman, Dr., first Anglican Bishop of 
 
 Colombo, 29 
 Charms, 196-198, 442 
 Chekku oil-mill, 435 
 Chena-farming, 344 
 Chetahs, 167, r68, 349-356, 459 
 Chilaw, 96, 98 
 China, early trade with Ceylon, 396; 
 
 Ceylon tributary to, 397 ; modern 
 
 trade with, ib. 
 Cholera, 465, 518 
 Christianity and other creeds contrasted, 
 
 601 
 Chrysobcryl, 321 
 Chunam, 41, 277 
 Cinchona plantations, 515, 516 
 Cinnamon, gardens of, ■;3,j, 44, 45, 50 ; 
 
 laurel and oil, 45-47 ; sensitive nature 
 
 of its perfume, 47 ; peelers, 48 ; in 
 
 jungles near Negombo, 107 
 
 — doves, 46 
 
 — stone, 320 
 
 Civil servants, frequent removal of, 420 «. 
 
 Clearing the forest, 338, 339, 343, 544, 
 522 
 
 Climbing plants, 345, 400 
 
 Close season for game, 346, 458 
 
 Clothes, smart, 146 
 
 Cobra, reverenced, 92 ; five- or seven- 
 headed, 92, 292, 295, 306 ; tame, 93, 
 292 ; and tic polonga, 293 ; bite reme- 
 dies, 301 
 
 Cock, red, sacrifice, 199 
 
 Cocoa plantation, life on a, 559, 369. See 
 Palm, Cocoa 
 
 Coffee, fields, 327, 340 ; stores as churches, 
 iS:c. , 340 ; thieves, 493 ; disease, 507 ; 
 history of, 507-510 
 
 C'oflln, stone, 296 
 
 College, St. Thomas's, 28, 29 ; Royal, at 
 Colombo, 30 ; Vidyodaya, 66 
 
 Colombo, its Cathedrals (Anglican), 29 ; 
 (Roman Catholic), 71 ; its harbour, 7, 
 8; ironworks, 9; cotton-spinning, ib.;
 
 INDEX 
 
 6ii 
 
 CON 
 
 churches, 30 ; fort, 34 ; siege of, 34, 
 35 ; lake, 38, 39; its esplanade (' Galle 
 Face '), 39 
 Convolvulus, marine, 80, 90, 100, 421, 
 
 471 
 
 Coolies, 518 
 
 Coral-tree, 120 
 
 Cotta mission-station, 108, 601 
 
 Cottiar Bay, 412 
 
 Cow-catcher, no 
 
 Cow-dung, plaster, 31, 337, 370 ; ashes, 
 343 ; boiling, 474 
 
 Crabs, 100, 421 
 
 Cremation of a Buddhist priest, 72, 73 
 
 Crime, regarded with indifference, 477, 
 480 ; causes of, 481 
 
 Criminals, few women, 481 
 
 Crocodiles, 256, 303, 358, 403, 456 ; lon- 
 gevity of, 403 ; skin, 404 
 
 Crops, two, annually, no, 262 
 
 Crow Island, 443 
 
 Cruelty to animals, 494, 495 
 
 Curry, 31 
 
 Customs, Singhalese and Tamil, 85 
 
 Dagoba, various kinds of, 210, 268 ; 
 Ruanweli, 268, 270, 277, 287 ; Miris- 
 wetiya, 269, 276 ; Abhayagiria, 270, 
 273, 276; Thuparama, 271, 273; Lan- 
 karama, 273, 276 ; Jetawanarama, 273, 
 276 ; of two classes, 274 ; circle on a 
 square, 275 ; Hanguranketa, contents 
 of, 276 ; Seta-Chaitiya or Lajjikavihara, 
 276 ; derivation of the word ' dagoba,' 
 276 «. ; Kiri Wihara, 277; at Buddha- 
 Gaya rebuilt, 289 n. ; Etwehera, 306 ; 
 Maha Seya, 306 ; Ambustele, 307 ; 
 Rankot or Ruan-welle-saye, 276, 393 ; 
 Kiri, at Pollonarua, 393 
 
 Dambulla rock-temples, 240 ; scene of 
 last insurrection, 249 
 
 Datura blossom, 128, 133 
 
 Datura fast Kosa, 301 
 
 Dawson, Captain, monument to, 122 
 
 Days of the week, 219 
 
 De and Don, Portuguese prefixes, 490 
 
 Deaths, falling from trees, 418, 419 ; acci- 
 dental, 492 
 
 Decoration, church, 142 
 
 Delada-Maligawa, at Kandy, 174, 201, 
 206, 221 ; at Anuradhapura, 271 ; at 
 Pollonaraa, 392 
 
 Delada-wanso, 220 
 
 Demon-worship, 197, 199, 371, 585, 586 
 
 Detractors of missionaries, 578 
 
 Devil-bird, 388 
 
 Devil-dancers, 183, 196, 199, 314, 585 
 
 Devils, flow to deceive, 198 
 
 Devotion, legendary acts of, 201 
 
 FER 
 
 Dewenipiatissa, King, 252, 273, 289, 303, 
 
 305 
 
 Dhatu-Sena and Mahanamo, 250, 260 
 
 Dhobie, village laundrynian, 380 ; pre- 
 pares bungalows for travellers, ib. 
 
 Dimbula district, 135 
 
 Dondra- or Dewa-nuwara, 285, 442, 446- 
 448 
 
 Douglas, Sir John, 255 
 
 Doves, 467, 468 
 
 Dragonflies, 327 
 
 Drama, 261, 422, 423 
 
 Duel, historic, 242, 243 
 
 Dufferin, Lady, her medical school for 
 women, 562 
 
 Dutch invasion, 550 
 
 — missions, 430 
 
 Dutugemunu, 243, 265, 268, 269 
 
 Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian, 592 
 
 Ebony, its durability, 43 ; peculiar cha- 
 racteristics of, 57, 419 ; raft of, 57 
 
 Eiswara, ancient worship of, 295 
 
 Elala, Prince of Mysore, 243, 265 
 
 Elephant Plains, 135 
 
 Elephant, Tom Skinner's first, 123 ; the 
 war elephant, Kadol, 265 ; shooting, 
 35°' 357' 359 ! ^ midnight adventme 
 with an, 460, 461 ; charmer, profes- 
 sional, 462 
 
 Elephants as surveyors, 125 ; as climbers, 
 153 ; natural history, 155-167 ; cause 
 of tender feet, 163 ; export of, 166 ; in 
 full dress, 212; bridge-building, 357; 
 close season and consequent increase, 
 458, 459 
 
 Elk (sambur deer), 169, 170, 346, 356, 
 
 459 
 Ella Pass, 334 
 Elu or high Singhalese, 204 
 Encroachments of the sea, 448-451 
 Eribuddu, 79 
 Esoteric Buddhism, 597 
 Eucalyptus, 506 
 Euphorbia, 462 
 Evil eye, dread of, 376 
 — spirits, how to deceive, 198 
 Eye flies, 347, 381 
 
 Fa Hian, Chinese traveller, 271, 288 
 Faiths, Blended, 196, 556 
 False accusation, nuu'ders to cause, 483 
 Farrar, Archdeacon , on Buddhism, 599 
 ' Father,' American mission, 564 
 Feet of Buddha, 274. See Holy Foot 
 Female medical students, 562 
 Ferguson, A. M., editor 'Ceylon Ob 
 server,' 52
 
 6l2 
 
 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IX CEYLON 
 
 FER 
 
 Ferguson, William, botanist, 52 
 
 Ferns, tree, 134, 401 ; maidenhair, 308 ; 
 climbing, 311, 471 ; basket, 401 
 
 Ficus religiosa, indica, and elastica, 105, 
 106, 187, 188, 288 
 
 Field-hospitals, 333 
 
 Filters, the necessity of, 90, 381 ; for vil- 
 lage use, 382 
 
 Fire, sacred, 62 
 
 Fire-flies (beetles), 20, 81, 131, 315, 423 
 
 Fish, varieties of, 28, 98, 100; culture, 
 139, 140; in boiling springs, 416 
 
 Fishers, their attire, 14 ; method of 
 shooting by firelight, 364 ; net draw- 
 ing, 451 ; the law of caste among, 473 ; 
 their allegiance to Rome, 549 
 
 Fishing, by torchlight, 79, 94 ; with 
 baskets, 94, 404 
 
 Flamboyant, 38 
 
 Floral offerings to Buddha, 61, 201, 278 
 
 Flowers, profusion of, 41, 129; at Xuwara 
 Eliya, 141, 142, 144 
 
 Flying fish, 424, 429 
 
 — foxes, 192, 400 
 
 — squirrels, 192 
 
 Foliage, brilliant, 12, 86, 132 
 Footprints, legendary, 523 ; Christian, 
 
 525 ; on AUegalla, 532 ; on Adam's 
 
 Peak, 540, 541 
 Forest Department, 344 
 Forres, 534 
 Fort Austenburg, 406 
 Fort Frederick, 407, 411 
 Frescoes, in rock-temple of DambuUa, 
 
 242; at Sigiri, 247 
 Frogs, 38 ; embedded in stone, 68 //. ; 
 
 green, 400 
 Fruit, varieties of, 28 ; troiiical, cool 
 
 when first gathered, 307 
 Fungi, brilliant, 326 
 
 Galgk, cell for chief priest, 296, 308 
 
 Galkulum, 267 
 
 Galle, its treacherous harbour, 6, 7, 
 429, 432 ; relics of Portuguese and 
 Dutch at, 17; Buddhism at, 70; its 
 lighthouse, 432 ; coral reefs, ib. ; its 
 excellent roads to Colombo, 470, 475 
 
 Gal Sannaso, 308 
 
 Gal Vihara, 395 
 
 Gambling, Singhalese love of, 17 ; leads 
 to crime, 480, 481 
 
 Gampola, 129, 285, 498 
 
 Gangarowa, 502 
 
 Genmiing, 149 
 
 Gems, the gem notary, 315 ; gems and 
 gem pits, 315-324 ; legislation concern- 
 ing, 323 
 
 (jiant's canal, 258, 264 
 
 HOI, 
 
 Giant's tank, 251 
 Gigantic bean, 89, 401 
 
 — images, 395 
 Gloriosa stiperba, 470, 479 
 Glow-worm, 315 
 
 Goats, long-U'gged, 294 
 
 Gobbs, 74 
 
 Gogerly, the Rev. J., 204 
 
 Goldsmith's curse, 182 
 
 Gordon, Sir Arthur Hamilton, as gover- 
 nor, 258-260 
 
 Gordon Gumming, John, ist chena 
 Inspector, 344 ; his diary, 348 
 
 Grain, suitable to dry soil, 255 
 
 Grammars in rhyme, 206 
 
 Grasshoppers, 327 
 
 Grassy plains, 135 
 
 Grave-stones, domestic use for, 337 
 
 Green, predominance of, amongst sub- 
 marine animals, 432 ; prevalence of, in 
 birds and butteiilies, 469 
 
 Gregory, Lake, 139 
 
 — Sir William, 139, 257 
 Grove of the Tank Gods, 398 
 Gunner's quoin, 397 
 Gutta-percha, 188 
 
 ' Habsidum,' or retention of breath, 296 
 Haeckel, Ernst, the naturalist, 379 
 Hak-galla, 152 
 HaldummuUa, 315 
 Hambantota, 327, 435, 457 
 Hanomoreyos outcasts, 379 
 Hanwella, 311 
 
 Happy Valley Mission, 330-333, 577 
 Haputale, 327, 330; its railway system, 
 
 112, 329 ; its pass, 328 
 Hardy, Rev. Richard Spence, 204, 205, 
 
 213 
 Hare, mark on moon, Buddhist legend 
 
 concerning, 211 ;/. 
 Hat-bodin, seven bo-trees, 446 
 Havelock, Sir Arthur, 305 
 Haye, Admiral de la, 412 
 Head-covering, Tamil and Singhalese 
 
 customs regarding, 85 
 Hedgehog-grass, 89 
 Hendala, leper hospital at, 444 
 Hibiscus, 33 
 Hindo-galla, 176 
 
 Hindoo-Buddhist procession, 211, 314 
 Hindoo images in Buddhist temples, 
 
 58, 196, 242 
 Hoffmeister on Kandy, 174 
 Holy Coat, 233 
 
 — Foot, or Feet, 523-525 
 
 — Footprint, claimed by various creeds, 
 
 523. 510. 541. 542 
 
 — Girdle, 231
 
 INDEX 
 
 613 
 
 HOL 
 
 Holy oil, how obtained, 228 
 
 — places in the forest, 398, 400 
 
 — teeth, a complete set, 226 
 
 — I'ooth, 206-235; burnt, 222; manu- 
 factured, 222, 223, 225 
 
 — Trousers, 037 
 Home-sick Britons, 29 
 Honey-sucker, 194 
 
 Hooker, Sir Joseph, on gutta-percha, 188 
 
 Hornets, 151 
 
 Horoscope, 197 
 
 Horse-keepers, 26, 362 
 
 Horses, 362 
 
 Horton Plains, 134 
 
 Hospitals, 56, 333 
 
 Hot-springs, 415 
 
 Hounds, 169 
 
 Hydrophobia, 56, 494 
 
 Ibx Batl'TA, Moorish traveller, 39, 446, 
 
 538 
 Idol's eyes, 70 
 Iguana, 80, 431 
 Images, Hindoo, in Buddhist temples, 
 
 58, 196 
 India-rubber tree, 106 ; avenue at Pcra- 
 
 deniya, 187 ; how india-rubber is 
 
 collected from, 187 
 Industrial homes and schools, 10, 332 
 Infidel books, 589 
 Inheritance, law of, 489 
 Inscriptions on rock or slabs, 2/4, 30 1 ; 
 
 the ' Galpota,' 391 
 Insects, noisy, 20 
 Iranative, snake-temple on, 91 
 Iron-wood, 38, 132 
 Irrigation works, 173, 250-264 
 Ixora, 387 
 
 Jackal's horn, 302 
 
 Jackals, 171, 349, 355 
 
 Jaffna, Mission.'i at, 554 ; the Tamil 
 College, 565-570 ; the lona of Southern 
 India, 568 ; devastated by cyclones, 582 
 
 Jak-tree, 119, 215 
 
 Jambu-tree, 365 
 
 Jay, blue, 149 
 
 Jaya-wewa, 303 
 
 Jetawanarama, temple at Pollonarua, 
 393 ; irrigation works, 398 
 
 Jinrikisha, 8 
 
 Juggernath car, 314, 326, 342 
 
 Jungle fever, remedy "for, iii 
 
 Jymkana, 143 
 
 Kaasyapa, the parricide, 246, 285 
 Kabragoya, 80, 431 
 
 Kaduganawa, 500 
 
 — Pass, III, 122, 128 
 
 Kala-wewa tank, 249 ; its feeders, 252 
 
 Kalidas, poet, 445 
 
 Kaloona, King, 285 
 
 Kalpitiya, 93, 95 
 
 Kalutara, 472 
 
 Kandy, its library, 118 ; ancient ap- 
 proach, 122, 123, 201 ; its history, 
 172 ; its kings' funeral ceremonies, 
 175 ; chiefs' dresses, 177; ladies' dresses, 
 180 ; four Hindoo temples at, 215 
 
 Kannya, its hot-springs, 415 
 
 Kanthalay tank, 251, 256, 398, 400, 405 
 
 Kapok, 121 
 
 KapU'is (devil-dancers), 183, 196, 19 
 
 314. 585 
 Kapurales, 215, 216 
 Karajo or Parangi, 586 
 Karative salt-pans, 96 
 Kataragam Devale, temple, 215, 336 
 Kattadia (devil-priest), 196, 197 
 Kattregam (Kataragama), 253, 398, 
 
 464 
 Kelany Ferry, 39 ; its bridge of boat 
 
 57; temple, 58; an inland town h. • 
 
 306, 449 
 Kiklomani Mount, 139, 147 
 Kingfishers, 363, 405 
 Kirti Nissanga, King, 384, 391 
 Kitool, 182 
 
 Knox, Robert, captivity of, 283, 412 
 Kopay Church, fall of steeple, 583 
 Kuniara Pokuna, 394 
 Kurukkan (grain), 255, 262 
 Kurunegalla, 241, 402, 497 
 Kushta, Rajah, 443, 444 
 Kutara Daas, king and poet, 445 
 Kuttam Pokuna, 303 
 
 ' Lagekstrqcmia regina," 114 
 Lagoons, 38; how formed, 39, 74, 36 j 
 
 salt formations in, 456 
 Lajji-ti>sa, King, 276 
 Lake Gregory, 139 
 Lakes, artificial, 38, 39, 250 
 Langdon, the Rev. Samuel, 330, 331, 577 
 Lanka, 288, 384, 449 
 
 — Dwipa, the Hapjjy Isle, 91 
 
 — Tileka, 498 
 Lantana, 345 
 
 Layard, Sir Charles Peter, 52 
 
 Leeches, 83, 84, 184-186 
 
 Legends and folk-lore, 243 
 
 Le Mesurier, Mr., 139 
 
 Lemon-grass, 136, 137 
 
 Leopards, miscalled chctahs in Ceylon. 
 
 Sec Chetahs 
 Leper King, 443, 444 ; hospital, 444
 
 6i4 
 
 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 LET 
 
 Lettuce-tree, 38 
 
 Lighthouses, 448 
 
 Lilies, water, 82, 298 ; white (virgin), 
 403, 421, 471 ; the Gloriosa sziperba, 
 climbing lily, 470 
 
 Litigation, prevalent among the Singhal- 
 ese, 489 
 
 Lizards, 80, 81, 400, 403, 453 
 
 Loris, little, 302 
 
 Lotus blossoms, 298, 310, 387 ; gold and 
 silver representations of, 206, 210, 286 
 
 Lowa-maha-paya, Great Brazen Temple, 
 279-281 
 
 Luminous creatures, 315 
 
 Lunatics, 26 
 
 Lyrics, Christian, 593 
 
 MADOOLSEiME, 338 
 
 Madulsima Mountains, 458 
 
 Maha Eliya (Horton Plains), 134 
 
 Maha-Sen, King, 251, 397-400, 405, 463 
 
 Maha-Wansae dynasty, 384 
 
 Maha-wanso chronicles, 204, 268, 283 
 
 Mahadova, 338 
 
 Mahagam, ancient city of, 458 
 
 Mahindo, royal missionary, 305-307 
 
 Mahindo's bed, rock-ledge, 308 
 
 Maidenhair fern, 308 
 
 ' Makin' a toil of it ! ' 519 
 
 Malaria in Dekanda Valley, in 
 
 Maligawa, Tooth temple at Kandy, 174, 
 
 201, 206 
 Mana grass, 136 
 Mandeville, Sir John (fourteenth century), 
 
 549 
 Mangosteen, 473 
 Mangrove, 79 
 
 — swamps, 363, 471 
 Mantis, praying, 193 
 Manuscripts, ancient, 204-206 
 Maradankadawalla, 267 
 Maravilla, 103 
 
 March, on the, 347 
 
 Marine convoUailus, 80, 90, 421, 471 
 
 Masks, hideous, 183 
 
 Matale, 238, 239 
 
 Matara, 412, 445, 451 
 
 Mavalipuram submerged, 451 
 
 MemecyloJi tinctorium, 299 
 
 Midwifery, native, 560 
 
 Migration of butterflies, 147 
 
 Mihintale, 271, 276, 277, 303 ; its 1,840 
 steps, 305 
 
 Mildew, 42, 272 
 
 Milk, Singhalese objection to, 81 ; offer- 
 ings of, 91, 291, 387 
 
 Millepedes, 194 
 
 Mimosa pudica, 301 
 
 — sensitiva, 190 
 
 Minei-y Lake, 251, 252, 384 
 
 NEG 
 
 Miiiery village, 398 
 
 Miracle plays at Chilaw, loi 
 
 Mission, native, 574; Hajjpy Valley, 577; 
 Tamil coolie, 589 ; Kandyan Itiner- 
 ancy, 595 
 
 Missionary detraction, 578 
 
 Missions, chronological table, 554 ; sum- 
 mary of, 555 ; American, commenced, 
 557 ! Wesleyan, 571 ; Native, to 
 Burmah, 578 ; Baptist and Presby- 
 terian, 579 «. ; Salvation Army, 579; 
 Episcopal, 580; to Portuguese burghers, 
 604 
 
 Models of hands, arms, eyes, and ears, as 
 thanksgiving offerings, 464 n. 
 
 Mohammedan festival, 69 
 
 — mosque, characteristics of, 93 
 Monara or Mayura-paya, 279 
 Monastic records gi'aven on rock, 310 
 Mongoose, 75, 95 ; antipathy to cobra, 
 
 76 «. 
 Monkeys, 78, 87-89, 459 ; mischievous 
 
 tricks of, 380 
 Monoliths, 268, 273, 274, 277, 281, 303 
 Monsoon, seasons of, 40 
 Monteiro, Juan, first Catholic primate of 
 
 Ceylon, 37, 550 
 Moondim Aar Lake, 369 
 Moon-stones (columns), ancient sculptural 
 
 designs on, 278, 287, 390 
 
 — gems, 149, 319 
 
 Moormen (Mohammedans), 15, 93, 94, 
 
 315, 316, 458 
 Mosquito, 79, 381 ; its fecundity, 140 
 Mouse-deer, 169, 459 
 Mudaliyar, dress of, 178 
 Mulgirigalla, Buddhist monastery, 454, 
 
 455 
 
 Munro, Sir Hector, 412 
 
 Murders to cause false accusation, 483, 
 484 
 
 Murray, Mr. A., inventor of clay sluice- 
 pipes, 261 
 
 Musical instruments, 183, 266 
 
 — shellfish, 364 
 
 Naga Pokuna, 306 
 
 Naga-dipo, Isle of Serpents, 91, 377 
 
 Nainativoe, snake-temple on, 91 
 
 Nairs, peculiar undress of high-caste 
 
 women, 248 
 Names, descriptive, 149 ; of persons, 490 ; 
 
 of estates, 520-522 
 Nanu-Oya, 128, 130, 139, 328 
 Nationalities, divers, in Ceylon, 14, 15 
 Nattoor, river, 375 
 Navatkuda, 365 
 Negombo fort, 106, 107 
 — lake, 79, 104
 
 lADEX 
 
 6ic 
 
 Nellore, 555 
 
 Nestorian Christians in Ceylon, 548 
 
 Nests, curious moths, 193; peculiar ! 
 
 character of birds', 194, 195 
 New Year, Tamil and Singhalese festival 
 
 of the, 69 
 Nillo, 151, 152 
 Nine and three, mystic numbers, 214, 
 
 215, 218, 219 
 Nipjile hills, 459 
 Nirvana, Buddhist ideal, contrasted with 
 
 the Eternal Life of the Christian, 266, '• 
 
 598-601 
 Nutmeg-tree, 51 
 Nuwara Eliya, 128, 130, 137 ; its climate, 
 
 140, 143 
 Nuwara-Kalawiya, 256, 386 
 Nuwara-wewa, 303 
 
 Oath-stone at Pollonarua, 398 
 • Observer, Ceylon,' newspaper, 52 
 Officials, busv, 461 n. 
 Ola palm-leaf book, 118, 204, 206 ; copy- 
 books, 375 
 Olcott, Colonel, 598 
 Oliphant, Laurence, 536 
 Oodooville, first girls' school, 558 
 Opera-glasses in the temple, its effect on 
 
 the priest, 208, 209 
 Opium crave and the use of quinine, 516 
 
 — dens, 439 ». 
 
 Orchids, Wanna Rajah, 78 ; yellow 
 
 ground, 136 
 Orchilla, lichen, 94 
 Ordeal, boiling oil, 474 
 Oriental Bank Corporation, its failure 
 
 and re-organisation, 509, 510 
 
 — Library, 66, 202, 204 
 Otters, 139, 171 
 Owls, 388 
 
 Oysters at Bentota, 468 
 
 Padda-bikds, 90 
 Badivil tank, 251 
 Pali, 204 
 Pallagolla, 130 
 Pallai, 584, 585 
 
 Palm, Areca, 23; blossoms of, 96; 
 characteristics of, 115 
 
 — Coco dc mcr, 189 
 
 — Cocoa, 23, 434 ; at high elevations, 
 86 ; with several heads, 107 ; its culti- 
 vation encouraged by foreigners, 264, 
 433, 434 ; life on a plantation, 359, 369, 
 426, 427 ; oil and other industries con- 
 nected with the cocoa palm, 435, 436 ; 
 the manufacture of toddy and arrack, 
 436-439; legitimate uses of the cocoa 
 palm, 440-4 j2 
 
 PLE 
 
 Palm, Date, Thorn, Oil, and Sago, 189 
 
 — Jaggery or Kitool, 115 
 
 — Palmyra, 86, 115, 416-421 ; marriage 
 with the banyan, 86, 420 
 
 — Talipot, 116 
 
 Palm-blossom, its resemblance to wheat, 
 
 96 ; used for decorative purposes, 181 ; 
 
 charm against evil spirits, 442 
 Palm-leaf books, 118 
 Palm-leaf umbrella, 116, 286 
 Palms as lightning-conductors, 441 
 Pandals, erection of, 18 1 
 I'andanus, 79 
 I'anduka-abaya, 303 
 Pansala schools, 63, 296, 330 
 Panther, 168 
 
 Pantura or Panadura, 475 
 Papaw, 120 
 
 Paradise in Ceylon, 520 
 Parangi or Karayo, 258, 2 32, 304, 462, 
 
 586 
 Park-Country, near Batticaloa, 334, 346, 
 
 372 
 Parroquet, yellow, 498 
 Patenas, 136, 137 
 Patipola dividing range, 328 
 Peacock Palace, 279 
 Pearl-fisheries, 5; police regulati< mi of, 
 
 495. 496 
 Peepul, 105, 288, 290 
 Pelicans' nests, 251 n., 358 
 Pengolin or ant-eater, 338 
 Peradeniya Gardens, 188-192 
 — Station, 128 
 Perahera, at Kandy, 200, 211, 2J3. 217; 
 
 dates of the feast, 213; at Rain -para, 
 
 313 ; at Dondra, 447 
 Periyakulam, 415 
 Per.urv rampant, 4S6, 487 
 Pet, ah, 26-20 
 
 Phosphorescence, 20, 21, 94, 423-425 
 Pidaru-tala-galla, 139, 144 
 Pigeons, 152, 459, 467 
 Pig-sticking, 360 
 Pilgrimages, government legulatic n of, 
 
 464 
 Pilgrims, aged, 533, 535 
 Ping-chattie (water-jar), 468-470 
 Pioneer corps, 125 
 Plains, Morton, 134; Totapella, 135 
 
 Elk, 136 ; Agra, /A. ; Moonstone, //'. 
 
 Maturata, 136,145; Kondapall(5, 136 
 
 Patena, ib. ; Uva, ib. ; Matale or 
 
 Mahatalawa, 336 ; Moon, 137 
 Planet-worship, 196, 218, 219 
 Planters, life of, 359, 517-523 ; aid in 
 
 mission work, 591 
 Plays, ancient 15uddhist, 272 ; 'I'amil, 
 
 261, 422 
 Pleurisy , 585
 
 6i6 
 
 Tiro HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 PLU 
 
 Plumbago, 324, 325 
 Plumeria aciilifolia, 6i 
 Poinciiina ?rgiii, 38 
 Pokuna, Kuniara, 394 
 
 — Kultam, 303 
 Police work, 477-496 
 
 Pollonania, 284, 285 ; ck-rivation of 
 
 name, 293 ; as a city, 383 
 Polyanciiy, 450 //. 
 Porcupine, 171, 359-361, 394, 459; its 
 
 ravages on tea-plants, 513 
 Portuguese, their invasion of Ceylon, 
 
 550; names, /i^.; ])rcsent condition, 604 
 I'otato-trce, 132, 335 
 I'ottery, offerings of red. 400 
 Prakrama Balui, King, 244, 253, 266, 
 
 285, 384, 385 ; his statue, audience hall, 
 
 and lion throne, 389 
 
 — Seas, 252, 384 
 
 Precautions in tropical countries, 300 
 
 Prescriptions, native, 300-302 
 
 Prickly heat, 83 
 
 Processions, Buddhist and Roman 
 Catholic, 71 ; Roman Catholic, at 
 Chilaw, loi ; Roman Catholic, in coffee 
 districts, 340, 341 
 
 Progress in Ceylon, 2, 4, 5 
 
 Proverbs, 297 
 
 Provinces, 181 
 
 Puliyantivu, 363 
 
 Pussilawa, 129 
 
 Puttalam, 93, 98 ; Saltworks at, 96, 456 
 
 QUAKKIES, 277 
 
 Quinine, as a cure for opium crave, 516 
 
 Races, diversity of, 14, 15, 85 
 
 Ragalla, 145 
 
 Rag offerings, 546 
 
 Railway, Colombo to Gatnpola, no, 
 
 III 
 Rainbow, rose-coloured, 327 
 Rain charms, 387, 392 
 Rajah Battiyatlissa, 306 
 Rajah-kariya, 6, 124, 173 ; abolished, 
 
 253 
 Rajah Singha, 206 
 Rama, Prince of Oudc and Ravana, 134, 
 
 449. 531 
 Raniayana, poem, 531 
 Rambutan, 28 
 Ratnapura, 311 
 Rat-snakes, 41, 129, 313 
 Rats, 41, 152, 171 
 
 f-iavana, the demon king, 134, 449, 531 
 Razors, cheap, 520 
 Red-deer, 169, 459 
 
 Red rain, 445 ;/. 
 
 ' Red thread' to kee[) off witches, 244 
 
 Reformatory, 333 
 
 Regimental coats for coolies, 340, 520 
 
 Registration of servants, 492 ; of carts,. 
 494 ; of dogs, 495 
 
 Relic shrines, 210, 275 
 
 Relic worship, 228 ; blood of Thomas a 
 Becket, ib. ; Father Arrowsmith's hand, 
 //'. ; arm of St. Augustine, 229 ; the 
 True Cross, il>. ; toe-nails of St. Peter, 
 230 ; corpse of the Bis'hop of Ischia, 
 ib. ; Sainte Ceinture, 231 
 
 Relics, recently discovered Buddhistic, 
 67-^9 ; several religious relics, 233-237 
 
 Religions, amalgamated, 58, 196, 211, 
 
 341-343 
 Religious conflicts, Roman Catholic, 71, 
 
 lOI 
 
 — intolerance, 566 //. 
 
 — orders, 37 
 Reptiles, 53 
 Rest-houses, 312, 405 
 Rhododendron-trees, 133 
 
 Rice, cultivation of, 109 ; from wrecked 
 ships, 264 
 
 Rice-fields, terraced, 109, 239 
 
 Rice-name, baby's, 197 
 
 Rita-galla, 350 
 
 River, the Kelani, 39, 57, 128, 311 ; the 
 Maha-welli-ganga, 73, 128, 130, 139, 
 172, 190, 381, 386 ; the Maha-Oya, 80, 
 104, 128, 347 ; the Ging-Oya, 80, 104 ; 
 the Lima-Oya, 82, 86, 102 ; the Dedroo- 
 Oya, 89; the Moondalani, 90; Puna- 
 Ella and Gaiiuida-Ella, 130; Sita-EUa, 
 134; Xanuoya, 139; Fort M'Donald, 
 170 ; the Ping-Oya, 238 ; the Kala- 
 Oya, 250 ; the Malwatte, 252, 263, 
 298 ; Ambanganga, 252, 386 ; the 
 Kalu-Ganga, 311, 472, 473 ; the Ma- 
 nick-Ganga, 321, 465 ; the Kataragama, 
 465 ; the Bclihul-Oya, 327 ; the We- 
 lawe-Ganga, ib. ; the Magama, 334; 
 the Dambera-Oya, 347 ; Nattoor, 375 ; 
 Gindura, 430; Nilwalla-Ganga, 442, 
 445 ; Kumukkan, formerly called Kom- 
 bookgam, 459 ; Alutgama, 466, 474 ; 
 Sita-Ganga, 536 
 
 Road bungalows, 312 
 
 Roads, 475 
 
 Robert de Xobili, Jesuit, 342 
 
 Robin, Ceylon, 103 
 
 Robinson, Sir Hercules, 65, 256 
 
 Rock frescoes at Sigiri, 247 
 
 Rock-masses, huge, 240, 241 ; rounded, 
 
 307. 497 
 Rock-snake, 352, 358 
 Rock-temples, Hindo-GaJla, 176; Alu- 
 
 Vihara, 239; Dambulla, 240; Isuru-
 
 INDEX 
 
 617 
 
 ROD 
 
 muniya, 295, 528 ; Ella Pass, 335 ; 
 
 Mulgirigalla, 4^4 
 Kodiya outcasts, 377-379 
 Rogers, Major, 155, 158, 159 ; memorial 
 
 church to, 160, 335 
 Roman Catholic Mission, 341, 556, 557 
 Roots of trees, peculiar buttress-like, 348, 
 
 498 
 Royal maiden, a, 450 
 Rubies, 316-318 
 Ruby sand, 465 
 Rugani tank, 348 
 
 Saami Rock, Trincomalee, 407-410 
 
 Sabaragamuwa, 317, 321 
 
 Sack-tree, 84 
 
 Saints, tradition regarding stature of, 
 
 528, 529 
 Salt-works, north-west coast, 96-98 ; 
 
 south-east, 456, 457 
 Saman, brother of Rama, 531 
 Sambur deer (miscalled elk), 196, 170, 
 
 171. 346, 459 
 
 Sanghamitta, 289, 307 
 
 Sanscrit, 204 
 
 Sa])phires, 316-318 
 
 Satin-wood bridge, 120 
 
 'Saved from smoke,' 570 
 
 Schools, Wtsleyan Industrial, at Co- 
 lombo, 10 
 
 Scorpions, 443 
 
 Scut'"linien, colonies of, 534 
 
 Screw-pine, 79 
 
 Seas of Prakiama, 252, 384 
 
 .Seeds, varieties of, carried by rivers, 89 ; 
 as water purifiers, 90, 382 
 
 Sensitive plant, 190 
 
 Serendib, 423 
 
 Serfdom on temple lands, 64; aijolished, 
 
 253 
 
 Serpent bites, remedies for, 300, 301 
 
 — worship, 292, 293 
 
 Serpents, precautions against, 42 ; tradi- 
 tion regarding magic virtue of stone 
 serpent, 91, 336; offerings of milk to 
 propitiate, 91 
 
 Service Tenures Ordinance, 65, 253 
 
 .Shadow, of Adam's Peak, 540, 544 ; of 
 Fuji-Yama, 544 
 
 Shark-charmers, 457 
 
 Sharks, dangers from, whilst bathing, 
 407, 456 ; and diving, 457 
 
 Shell-beds, 463 
 
 Shell-fish, musical, 364 
 
 Slirine, of St. Anna, 102; of the 'I'ooth, 
 206 
 
 .Sigiri, fortress of, 245, 285 ; rock frescoes 
 :it, 247 
 
 TAL 
 
 Singhalese children, 31, 85 
 
 — homes, 31 
 
 Sita, wife of Rama, 134, 449, 531 
 Siva, 92, 295 
 
 — shrine, 410 
 Skanda, temple to, 336 
 
 Skinner, Colonel, and the taking o f 
 Kandy, 122 
 
 — Major, the roadiiiaker, 122; his 
 rations, 126 ; his work, 127 ; and the 
 ruins of Pollonarua, 283 ; on district 
 courts, 491 ; his prophecy, 504 
 
 Skylarks, 171 
 Slave Island, 38 
 Sluice-pipes of clay, 261, 267 
 Smallpox, first appearance of, in Ceylon, 
 
 124 ; goddess of, propitiation of, 200 ; 
 
 terrible visitation in 1801, 386 
 Snake, rat-, 41, 93; sea-, 94 
 Snake's Isle, 91 
 
 — temples, 91 
 
 Snakes, their fangs, 91 ; superstitions 
 regarding, 91, 92 ; Buddhism and the 
 worship of, 92, 292 ; five- and seven- 
 headed representations of, 92, 292, 
 
 295 
 Snipe, 371 
 Society for the Prevention of Crueltv to 
 
 Animals, 495 
 
 — for the propagation of the Gospel, 605 
 Southernmost known land, 448 
 
 Soysa, Charles de, 55, 103 
 Spice-laden breezes, 13, 23 
 Spiders, 381, 452, 453 
 Sportsman's paradise, 361 
 Spotted deer, 171, 346, 459 
 Squirrels, 152, 171, 192, 193, 452 
 Sri Pada, Holy Foot, 523 
 Sri-patula, sacred footprint, 296 
 Sri Wikrema Raja Singha, King, 173 
 Stag's-horn moss, 182 
 Stick-insects, 193 
 Stilts, 184 
 .Stone books, 309, 391 
 
 — bulls, 287 
 Strychnine-tree, 90 
 .Suffroin, Admiral, 412 
 Suia-Wansae, or Lesser Dynasty, 283 
 .Sun-birds, 414 
 
 Sunday-laljour at Hong Kong, repressive 
 
 regulations, 577 //. 
 Sunwise turns (circles) by Pilgrims, 286, 
 
 287, 292, 314, 539 
 Suriya-trees, 33 
 Suriya-Wansae, or Solar Dynasty, 33 
 
 TAIL0K-1!1KD, 195 
 'I'alavillu, loi
 
 6i8 
 
 TIVO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON 
 
 TAL 
 
 Talipot-leaf (palm of palms), 116-118 
 
 Talla-goya lizard, 81 
 
 Tamankaduvva district, 386 
 
 Tamarind-tree, 120 
 
 Tamblegam, brackish lake, 405 
 
 Tamil coolies as labourers, 518 
 
 — ladies, confirmation of, 98 
 
 Tangalle, 451, 454 
 
 Tanks, restoration of, 256-263 ; at Batti- 
 
 caloa, 256, 362 ; restoration around 
 
 Pollonarua, 386 
 Tea, in 1660 and 1890, 2 «. ; 'golden 
 
 tips,' 5 «. ; how to cool, for traveller's 
 
 drink, 382 ; introduction of, 507, 511 ; 
 
 adaptive to soil, 512 
 Teeth, a complete set, 226 
 Templer, Mr. and Mrs. Philip, 175 
 Tennant, Sir James limerson, 119, 250, 
 
 251, 393 
 Theosophy, 597 
 Thcspesia populnca, 17, 33 
 Thorny plants, 82 
 Three and nine, mystic numbers, 214, 
 
 215, 218, 219, 325 
 Thunbergia, 187 
 Ticks, 347 
 
 Tic polonga and cobra, 293 
 Timber, beauty and variety of Ceylonese, 
 
 56, 57 
 Time and tides, 40 
 Tiripane tank, 267 
 Tissamaharama tank, 462 
 Tissa-wewa, 253, 256, 258, 303 
 Titles, official, 179, 180 
 Toddy and arrack, 417-419, 436-439 
 Toddy-drawers, 366, 417-419 
 ' Tooth and State,' 203, 225 
 Tooth, the original, 206-228 ; its many 
 
 temples, 221 
 Topar^ (Pollonarua), 383, 386 
 Topa-Wewa, 383 
 Topaz, 320 
 Tortoises, 53-55, 75 
 Tortoise-shell, 16 
 Totapella Plains, 135, 137 
 Tourmaline, 321 
 Transmigration, 194 ; of Buddha as a 
 
 hare, 211 «. 
 Travellers' tree, 33 
 Tree of Life (palmyra), 86, 115, 416-421 ; 
 
 marriage with the banyan, 86, 420 
 Tree worship, 288-292 
 Trees, peculiar buttress-like roots, 348, 
 
 498 
 Trincomalee, 406 ; additional fortification 
 
 at, 407 
 Tulip-tree, 33 
 Turtle-doves, 46 
 Turtles, 53-55, 75 
 Turtles' eggs, 428 
 
 WOR 
 
 Umbrell.-\s, honorific, 116 «., 210, 212, 
 216, 268, 314 ; low caste persecuted 
 for carrying umbrellas, 366, 368 
 
 ^^'^' 135. 330. 333. 511 
 
 Vavun"iva-vil.\n-kul.\>i tank, 251 
 
 Vaz, Father Joseph, 552 
 
 Veddahs, rock, 372, 373 ; their method of 
 
 fire kindling, 374 ; village and coast 
 
 veddahs, ib. ; high caste, 374, 377 ; as 
 
 archers, 375 
 [ Vegetation, nature's laws regarding, 512 
 i Vendeloos Bay, 375 
 Venomous creatures, 82 
 Vicarton Gorge, 238 
 Vidyodaya College, 66, 67, 69 
 Vigita-pura, 264, 265 
 Village hospitals, 6 
 Violets, 136 
 I Votive offerings at Kattaragama, &c., 
 
 464 n. 
 
 WAIv\VEI.I,.\, 432 
 
 Walagam-bahu, King, 239, 270 
 
 Wanderoo monkeys, 78, 87, 171 
 I Wanna F^ajah orchid, 78 
 
 Wannie, the dreary, 584, 585 
 
 Wanny, the, 252, 459 
 
 Wansae, Sula-, 383 ; Maha-, 384 ; Suriya- 
 (Solar Dynasty), ib. ; Soma Suriya- 
 (Luni-Solar race), 391 
 
 Ward, Sir Henry, 256, 344, 362 
 
 W'ata Dage, 390, 391 
 
 Watch huts, 397 
 
 Water, purified by seeds, 90, 382 ; cere- 
 mony of cutting the, 217 ; scarcity of, 
 255, 256 ; impurities of, 381 
 
 Water-cress, 130 
 I Water-jars, meritorious, 468-470 
 1 Water-lilies, 82 
 I Water-spouts, 40 
 
 Weaver-bird, 195 
 
 Wedding procession, 84 
 
 ' Weight in gold,' 244, 392 
 
 Welligama, 443, 444 
 
 Wellnigton, the Duke of, at Trincomalee, 
 
 413 ^ 
 Wesleyan Mission commenced, 571 
 Wheel, as an emblem, 571 
 White cloth, the honours of the, 184, 209, 
 
 215. 3^4. 365. 380 
 Wijeyo the Conqueror, 242, 244, 464 ; 
 
 his capital, 285 
 Wilderness of the Peak, 505 
 Williams, Sir Monier, on Buddhism, 60 
 Wind, land, 106 
 Witchcraft, 301, 302 
 Woods, ornamental, 56, 57 
 Work for women , 560
 
 INDEX 
 
 619 
 
 WOR 
 
 Workers wanted, 605, 606 
 Worms, gigantic, 194, 402 
 Wrightson, Mr., 259 
 Wytulian heresy, 280 
 
 Xavier, Saint Francis, 549 
 
 Yakkas, 249, 301, 377 
 Yellow parroquet, 498 
 
 Yodi Ela, 258, 304 
 
 Yoga stones, 296, 390 
 
 Young Men's Christian Association, 570 
 
 Yule, Sir H., 225 
 
 Zebu, 26 
 Zenanas, 560 
 Zircon, 320 
 
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 Cain. 
 
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 Castaway. 
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 Land at Last. 
 
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 Chaplain of the Fleet. 
 The Seamy Side. 
 The Case of Mr. Lucraft. 
 In Trafalgar s Bay. 
 The Ten Years Tenant. 
 
 By Sir WALTER BESANT 
 
 All Sorts & Conditions, i Armorel of Lyone^se 
 
 The Captains Room. 
 
 All in a Garden Fair. 
 
 Dorothy Forster. 
 
 Uncle jack. I Holy Rose 
 
 World Went Well Then. 
 
 Children of Qibeon. 
 Herr Paulas. 
 For Faith and Freedom. 
 To Call Her Mine. 
 
 ?he Revolt of Man. 
 he Bell of St. Paul s. 
 
 Matt. I Rachel Dene 
 Master of the Mine. 
 The Heir of Llnne. 
 Woman and the Man. 
 Red and White Heather. 
 Lady Kilpatrick. 
 
 Armadale. I AfterDark. 
 No Name. I Antonina 
 Basil. I Hide and Seek. 
 The Dead Secret. 
 Queen of Hearts. 
 M; Miscellanies. 
 
 The Woman In White. 
 The Law and the Lad/. 
 The Haunted Hotel. 
 The Moonstone. 
 Man and Wife. 
 Poor Miss Finch. 
 
 S.Katherlne s bv Tower 
 Verbena Camellia, &c. 
 The Ivory Gate. 
 The Rebel Queen. 
 Dreams of Avarice. 
 In Deacon s Orders. 
 The Master Craftsman. 
 The City of Refuge. 
 A Fountain Sealed. 
 The Changeling. 
 The Charm. 
 
 By AMBROSE BIERCE— InMidst of Life. 
 By HAROLD BINDLOSS.Ainslies Ju Ju. 
 
 By M. McD. BODKIN Dora Myrl. 
 
 By PAUL BOUROET.— A Living Lie. 
 By J. D. BRAYSHAW.— Slum silhouettes. 
 
 By ROBERT BUCHANAN. 
 Shadowof the Sword. | The New Abelard. 
 A Child of Nature. 
 God and the Man. 
 Martyrdom of Madeline 
 Love Me for Ever. 
 Annan Water. 
 Foxglove Manor. 
 The Charlatan. 
 
 R. W. CHAMBERS.-The King in Yellow 
 
 By J. M.CH APPLE.— The Minor Chord. 
 
 By HALL CAINE. 
 
 Shadow of a Crime. | Deemster. | Son of Hagar 
 
 By AUSTIN CLARE. By Rise of Elver. 
 
 By ANNE COATES. — Ries Diary. 
 
 By MACLAREN COBBAN. 
 
 The Red Sultan. I The Burden of Isabel. 
 
 By MORT. & FRANCES COLLINS. 
 
 Blacksmith 4 Scholar | You Play me False. 
 
 The Village Comedy. | Midnight to Midnight 
 
 By WILKIE COLLINS 
 
 Miss or Mrs. 
 The New Magdalen. 
 The Frozen Deep. 
 The Two Destinies. 
 • I Say No.' 
 Little Novels. 
 The Fallen Leaves. 
 
 Jezebel s Daughter. 
 The Black Robe. 
 Heart and Science. 
 The Evil Genius. 
 The Legacy of Cain. 
 A Rogue's Life. 
 Blind Love. 
 
 M. J. COLQUHOUN.-Every Inch Soldier. 
 
 By E.H.COOPER.— Geoffory Hamilton. 
 By V. C. COTES.— Two Girls on a Barge. 
 C. E. CRADDOCK — His Vanished Star. 
 
 By H. N. CRELLIN. 
 Romances of the Old Seraglio. 
 
 By MATT CRIM. 
 The Adventures of a Fair Rebel. 
 
 By S. R. CROCKETT and others. 
 Tales of Our Coast. 
 
 M. 
 
 CROKER. 
 
 The Real Lady Hilda. 
 Married or Single ? 
 Two Masters. 
 In theKingdom of Kerry 
 Interference. 
 A Third Person, 
 Beyond the Pale. 
 Miss Balmaine 8 Past. 
 
 By B 
 
 Diana Barrington. 
 
 Proper Pride. 
 
 A Family Likeness. 
 
 Pretty Miss Neville. 
 
 A Bird of Passage. 
 
 'To Let.' I Mr. Jervis. 
 
 Village Tales. 
 
 Some One Else. | Jason. 
 
 Infatuation 
 
 By W. CYPLES.^Heartsof Gold. 
 
 By ALPHONSE DAUDET. 
 
 The Evangelist ; or, Port S.^Ivation. 
 
 H. C. DAVIDSON Mr. Sadler's Daughters, 
 
 By E. DAWSON The Fountain of Youth, 
 
 By J. DE MILLE.— A Castle in Spain. 
 
 By J. LEITH DERWENT. 
 
 Our Lady of Tears. | Circe s Lovers. 
 
 By HARRY DE WINDT. 
 
 True Tales of Travel and Adventure. 
 
 By DICK DONOVAN 
 
 Tales of Terror. 
 Chronicles of 'Michael 
 Danevitch. (Detective. 
 Tyler Tatlock, Private 
 
 Man from Manchester 
 Records of Vincent Trill 
 The Mystery of 
 Jamaica Terrace. 
 
 By RICHARD DOWLING. 
 Old Corcoran's Money. 
 
 By A. CONAN DOYLE. 
 The Firm of Girdlestone. 
 
 By S. JEANNETTE DUNCAN. 
 A Daughter of To day. I Vernons Aunt. 
 By A. EDWARDES.- A Plaster Saint. 
 By G. S. EDWARDS.— SnazelleparllU. 
 By Q. MANVILLE FENN 
 
 Cursed by a Fortune, 
 The Case of Allsa Gray 
 Commodore Junk. 
 The New Mistress. 
 Witness to the Deed. 
 The Tiger Lily. 
 The White Virgin. 
 Black Blood. 
 Doable Cunning. 
 Bag of Diamonds, ice 
 
 A Fluttered Dovecote. 
 King of the Castle 
 Master of Ceremonies. 
 Eve at the Wheel. &c. 
 The Man with a Shadow 
 One Maid s Mischief. 
 Story of Antony Grace, 
 This Man s Wife. 
 In Jeopardy. ning. 
 
 A Woman Worth Win- 
 
 By PERCY FITZGERALD. -FatalZeroJ 
 By R. E. FRANCILLON. 
 
 One by One. I Ropes of Sand. 
 
 A Dog and his Shadow. Jack Doyle s Daughter. 
 
 A Real Queen. I 
 
 By HAROLD FREDERIC. 
 Seth's Brothers Wife. I The Lawton Girl. 
 
 By GILBERT GAUL. 
 
 AStrange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder 
 
 By PAUL GAULOT.— The Red shuts. 
 
 By CHARLES GIBBON. 
 
 I The Golden Shaft. 
 The Braes of Yarrow. 
 
 Robin Gray. 
 Loving a Dream. 
 Of High Degree 
 
 By E. 
 The Lost Heiress. 
 FalrColonUt | Foeslcker | Tales fror" the V?ld. 
 
 QLANVILLE. 
 
 The Golden Rock.
 
 ih CHAtto & WINDUS, Publishers, in ^t. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 
 
 The Piccadilly (s/O) ^o\e.i.s— continued. 
 
 By E. J. UOODMAN. 
 The Fate of Herbert Wayne. 
 
 By Rev. S. BARING GOULD. 
 Eed Spider. I Eve. 
 
 CECIL GRIFFITH.-Corlnthla Marazion. 
 
 By A. CLAVERING GUNTER. 
 A Florida Enchantment. 
 
 By OWEN HALL. 
 The Track of a Storm. | Jetsam. 
 
 By COSMO HAMILTON 
 Olamoor of Impossible. I Through a Keyhole. 
 
 By THOMAS HARDY. 
 Under the Greenwood Tree. 
 
 By BRET HARTE 
 A Waif of the Plains. " " "' 
 
 A Ward of the Golden 
 Gate. [Springs. 
 
 A Sappho of Green 
 Col. Starbottle 3 Client. 
 Susy, I Sally Dows. 
 BellRinger of Angela. 
 Tales of Trail and Town 
 
 By JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 
 Garth I Dust. i Beatrix Randolph. 
 
 EUice Quentin. David Poindexter s Dl» 
 
 Sebastian Strome. appearance. 
 
 Fortune 3 Fool. I Spectre of Camera. 
 
 By Sir A. HELPS.— Ivan de Biron. 
 By I. HENDERSON.— Agatha Page. 
 ^ By G. A. HENTY. 
 Dorothys Double. I The Queen's Cup. 
 
 By HEADON HILL. 
 Zambra the Detective. 
 By JOHN HILL. The Common Ancestor. 
 
 By TIQHE HOPKINS. 
 Twixt Love and Doty. [ Nugents of Carriconna. 
 
 The Incomplete Adventurer. 
 VICTOR HUGO.-The Outlaw of Iceland. 
 FERGUS HUME.-Ladv from Nowhere. 
 
 By Mrs. HUNGERFORD 
 A Mental Struggle. - — -■- -■■ »• 
 
 Lady Verner's Flight, 
 
 A Protegee o( Jack 
 
 Hamlin's. 
 Clarence. 
 Barker's Luck. 
 Devil 3 Ford, [celsior.' 
 The Crusade of the ' Ex- 
 Three Partners. 
 Gabriel Conroy. 
 
 A Maiden all Forlorn. 
 
 The Coming of Chloe. 
 
 Nora Creina. 
 
 An Anxious Moment. 
 
 April 8 Lady. 
 
 Peter s Wife. 1 Lovice. 
 
 The Red-House Mystery 
 The Three Graces. 
 Prnt'cssor B Experiment. 
 A Point of Conscience. 
 
 By Mrs. ALFRED HUNT. 
 The Leaden Casket. I Self Condemned. 
 That Other Person. | Mrs. Juliet. 
 
 By C. J. CUTCLIFFE HYNE. 
 Honour of Thieves. 
 By R. ASHE KING—A Drawn Game. 
 By GEORGE LAMBERT. 
 The President of Boravia. 
 
 By EDMOND LEPELLETIER. 
 Madame Sans Gene. 
 By ADAM LI LBURN.IA Tragedy in Marble 
 
 By HARRY LINDSAY. 
 Rboda Roberts. | The Jacobite. 
 
 By HENRY W. LUCY. -Gideon Fleyce. 
 By E. LYNN LINTON. 
 
 Patricia Kemball 
 Under which Lord? 
 ■ My Love I ' | lone. 
 Paston Carew. 
 Sowing the Wind. 
 With a Silken Thread 
 The World Well Lost. 
 
 By JUSTIN McCarthy. 
 
 The Atonement of Leam 
 
 Dundas. 
 The One Too Many. 
 Dulcie Everton. 
 Rebel of the Family. 
 An Octave of Friends. 
 
 A Fair Saxon. 
 
 Llnley Rochford. 
 
 Dear Lady Disdain. 
 
 Camiola 
 
 Waterdale Neighbours. 
 
 My Enemy s Daughter. 
 
 Hiss Misanthrope. 
 
 Donna Quixote. 
 
 Maid of Athens. 
 
 The Comet of a Season. 
 
 The Dictator. 
 
 Red Diamonds. 
 
 The Riddle King. 
 
 The Three Disgraces. 
 
 By GEORGE MACDONALD. 
 
 Heather and Snow. | Phantastes. 
 
 W. H. MALLOCK — The New RepubUc. 
 P. &V. MARGUERITTE. -The Disaster. 
 By L. T. MEADE. 
 
 A Soldier of Fortune. I On Brink of a Chasm. 
 In an Iron Grip. I The Siren. 
 
 Dr. Rnmsey's Patient. I The Way of a Woman. 
 The Voice oftheCharmer | A Son of Iihmael. 
 An Adventuress. 
 
 By LEONARD MERRICK. 
 This Stage of Fools. | Cynthia. 
 
 By BERTRAM MITFORD. 
 The Gun Runner. I The King s Assegai. 
 
 LuckofGerardRidgeley. | Rensh. Fanning'sQuest, 
 
 By J. E. MUDDOCK. 
 Maid Marian and Robin Hood. | Golden Idol. 
 Baslle the Jester. | Young Locbinvar. 
 
 By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY. 
 
 The Way of the World. 
 BobMartin's Little Girl 
 Time's Revenges. 
 A Wasted Crime. 
 In Direst Peril. 
 Mount Despair. 
 A Capful 0' NailB. 
 Tales in Prose & 'Vena. 
 A Race for Millions. 
 This Little World. 
 
 A Life's Atonement. 
 
 Joseph's Coat. 
 
 Coals of Fire. 
 
 Old Blazer s Hero. 
 
 ■Val Strange. 1 Hearts. 
 
 A Model Father. 
 
 Sy the Gate of the Sea. 
 
 A Bit of Human Nature. 
 
 First Person Singular. 
 
 Cynic Fortune. 
 
 By MURRAY and HERMAN. 
 The Bishops' Bible. I Paul Jones s Alias. 
 One Traveller Returns. | 
 
 By HUME NISBET.- BailUp r 
 By W. E. NORRIS. 
 Saint Ann's. I Billy Bellew. 
 
 Miss Wentworth's Idea. 
 By G. OHNET. 
 A Weird Gift. | Love's Depths, 
 
 By Mrs. OLIPHANT.-The SorcereM. 
 By OUIDA. 
 Held in Bondage. In a Winter City. 
 
 Strathmore. | Chandos. Friendship. 
 Under Two Flags 
 
 Idalla. (Gage. 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine's 
 I Tricotrin. | Puck. 
 
 FoUe Farine. 
 
 A Dog of Flanders. 
 
 Pascarel. | Signa. 
 \ Princess Napraxine. 
 
 Two Wooden Shoes. 
 
 Moths. I Enffino. 
 Pipistrello. | Ariadne. 
 A Village Commune. 
 Bimbi. | Wanda. 
 Frescoes. I Othmar. 
 In Maremma. 
 Syrlln. I Guilderoy. 
 Santa Barbara. 
 Two Offenders. 
 
 The Waters of Edera, 
 By MARGARET A. PAUL. 
 Gentle and Simple. 
 
 By JAMES PAYN. 
 
 Lost Sir Massingberd. The Talk of the Town. 
 
 Holiday Tasks. 
 For Cash Only. 
 The Burnt Million. 
 The Word and the Will. 
 Sunny Stories, 
 A Trying Patient. 
 A Modern Dick Whit- 
 tington. 
 
 By JUSTIN H. MCCARTHY. 
 A XaMidon Legend. - | The Royal Christopher 
 
 A County Family. 
 Less Black than We're 
 
 Painted. 
 A Confidential Agent. 
 A Grape from a Thorn. 
 In Peril and Privation. 
 Mystery of Mirbridge. 
 Walter s Word. 
 High Spirits. iBy Proxy. 
 By WILL PAYNE — Jerry the Dreamer. 
 By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED. 
 Outlaw and Lawmaker. I Mrs. Tregaskiss. 
 Oliristina Chard. I Nulma. I Madame Izan. 
 
 By E. C. PRICE. 
 Valentina. | Foreigners. | Mrs. Lancaster's Rival. 
 
 By RICHARD PRYCE. 
 Miss Maxwell's Affections, 
 
 By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL. 
 Weird Stories. I A Rich Man's Daughter. 
 
 By AMELIE RIVES. , 
 Barbara Dering. I Meriel. 
 
 By F. W. ROBINSON. 
 The Hands of Justice. I Woman in the Dark. 
 
 By ALBERT ROSS A Sugar Princess. 
 
 By HERBERT RUSSELL. Tme Blue
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, Publishers, in St. Martin's Lane. London. W.C. 29 
 
 The Piccadilly (3/6) Novels— co)i(i;iKe(i, 
 
 By CHARLES READE. 
 Peg Wofflngton : and Griffith Gaunt. 
 
 Christie Johnstone.^ 
 Hard Cash. S' 
 
 Cloister & the Hearth. 
 Never Too Late to Mend 
 The Course of True 
 Love ; and Single- 
 heart & Doubleface. 
 Autobiography of a 
 Thief; Jack of all 
 Trades : A Hero and 
 a Martyr ; and The 
 Wandering Heir 
 
 Love Little. Love Long. 
 The Double Marriage. 
 Foul Play. 
 
 Put Y'rself in His Place 
 A Terrible Temptation. 
 A Simpleton. 
 A Woman Hater. 
 The Jilt. & otherStories : 
 & Good Stories of Man. 
 A Perilous Secret. 
 Readiana ; and Bible 
 Characters. 
 
 J. RUNCiMAN Skippers and Shellbacks, 
 
 By W. CLARK RUSSELL. 
 
 Round the Galley Fire. 
 In the Middle Watch. 
 On the Fo'k'sle Head 
 A Voyage to the Cape. 
 Book for the Hammock. 
 Mysteryof 'Ocean Star' 
 Jenny Harlowe. 
 An Ocean Tragedy. 
 A Tale of Two Tunnels. 
 
 My Shipmate Louise. 
 Alone onWideWide Sea. 
 The Phantom Death. 
 Is He the Man ? 
 Good Ship Mohock.' 
 The Convict Ship. 
 Heart of Oak. 
 The Tale of the Ten. 
 The Last Entry. 
 
 By DORA RUSSELL.-Driftof Fate. 
 
 BAYLE ST. JOHN A Levantine Family. 
 
 By ADELINE SERGEANT, 
 
 Dr. Endicott's Experiment. 
 TTnder False Pretences. 
 
 By GEORGE R. SIMS. 
 
 RoRues and Vagabonds. 
 In London's Heart 
 Mary Jane Married. 
 The Small part Lady. 
 
 Dagonet Abroad. 
 Once Upon a Christmas 
 
 Time. 
 Without the Limelight. 
 
 By HAWLEY SMART. 
 Without Love or Licence. I The Outsider. 
 The Master of Rathkelly. Beatrice & Benedick. 
 Long Odds. I A Racing Rubber. 
 
 By T. W. SPEIGHT. 
 A Secret of the Sea. I A Minion of the Moon. 
 The Grey Monk. Secret Wyvern Towers. 
 
 The Master of Trenance | The Doom of Siva. 
 The Web of Fate. 
 By ALAN ST. AUBYN. 
 A Fellow of Trinity. I The Tremlett Diamonds. 
 The Junior Dean. The Wooing of May. 
 
 Masterof St Benedict's. A Tragic Honeymoon. 
 To his Own Master. A Proctor s Wooing. 
 
 Gallantry Bower. I Fortune's Gate. 
 
 In Face of the World. Bonnie Maggie Lander. 
 Orchard Damerel. | Mary Unwin. 
 
 By JOHN STAFFORD. — Doris and L 
 By R. STEPHENS.— The Cruciform Mark. 
 R. A. STERNDALE.— The Afghan Knife. 
 R. L. STEVENSON.— The Suicide Club. 
 
 By FRANK STOCKTON. 
 The Young Master of Hyson Hall. 
 By ANNIE THOMAS.— The Sirens Web. 
 BERTHA THOMAS.— The Violin Player. 
 
 By FRANCES E. TROLLOPE 
 
 Like Ships upon Sea. I Mabel's Progress. 
 Anne Fnrness. | 
 
 By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 
 The Way we Live Now. I Scarborough s Family. 
 Frau Frohmann. The Land Leaguers. 
 
 Marion Fay. I 
 
 By IVAN TURGENIEFF, &c. 
 Stories from Foreign Novelists. 
 
 By MARK TWAIN 
 
 Choice Works 
 Library of Humour. 
 The Innocents Abroad. 
 Roughing It ; and The 
 
 Innocents at Home. 
 A Tramp Abroad. 
 TheAmerican Claimant. 
 AdventuresTomSawyer 
 Tom Sawyer Abroad. 
 Tom Sawyer, Detective 
 
 Pudd'nhead Wilson. 
 The Gilded Age. 
 Prince and the Pauper. 
 Life on the Mississippi. 
 The Adventures of 
 
 Huckleberry Finn. 
 A Yankee at the Court 
 
 of King Arthur. 
 Stolen White Elephant 
 £1,000,000 Bank-note. 
 
 C. C. F.-TYTLER.— Mistress Judith. 
 
 By SARAH TYTLER. 
 
 WhatShe CameThrough , Mrs Carmichael's God- 
 Buried Diamonds. I desses. I Lady Bell. 
 The Blackball Ghosts. Rachel Langton. 
 The Macdonald Lass. A Honeymoon's Eclipse. 
 Witch-Wife. I Sapphira ' A Younfr Dragon. 
 
 By ALLEN UPWARD. 
 The Queen against Owen I The Prince of Balklstan. 
 
 By ALBERT D. VANDAM. 
 
 A Court Tragedy. 
 
 By E. A. VIZETELLY.-Thc Scorpion. 
 By F. WARDEN.— Joan, the Curate. 
 By CY W ARM A N.-Express Messenger. 
 
 By WILLIAM WESTALL. 
 
 The Old Factory. 
 
 Red Ryvington. 
 Ralph Norbreck's Trust 
 Trust-money 
 Sous of Belial. 
 Roy of Roy's Court. 
 With the fted:Eagle. 
 Strange Crimes (True 
 
 For Honour and Life 
 AWoman Tempted Him 
 Her Two Millions. 
 Two Pinches of Snuff. 
 Nigel Fortescue. 
 Birch Dene. 
 The Phantom City. 
 A Queer Race. 
 Ben Clough. 
 
 By ATHA WESTBURY. 
 The Shadow of Hilton Fembrook. 
 By C. J. WILLS.— An Easygoing Fellow 
 
 By JOHN STRANGE WINTER. 
 
 Cavalry Life ; and Regimental Legends. 
 A Soldier's Children. 
 
 By E. ZOLA. 
 
 The Fortune of the Rougons. 
 Abbe Mouret's Transgression. 
 The Conquest of Plassans. I Germinal- 
 
 The Downfall, 
 The Dream. I Money. 
 Dr. Pascal. I Lonrdes. 
 The Fat and the Thin 
 
 His Excellency. 
 The Dram-Shop. 
 Rome I Paris. 
 Frultfulness. 
 
 By ' Z Z. '—A Nineteenth Century Miracle. 
 
 CHEAP EDITIONS OF POPULAR NOVELS. 
 
 Post 8vo, illustrated boards, as. each. 
 
 By ARTEMUS WARD. 
 
 ArtemuB Ward Complete. 
 
 By EDMOND ABOUT. 
 The Fellah. 
 
 By Mrs. ALEXANDER. 
 
 Maid, Wife, or Widow 7 I A Life Interest. 
 Blind Fate. Mona s Choice. 
 
 Valerie s Fate. I By Woman » Wit 
 
 By GRANT ALLEN 
 
 Philistla. I ' Babylon. 
 Strange Stories. 
 For Maimie's Sake. 
 In all Shades. 
 The Beckoning Hand. 
 The Devil's Die. 
 The Tents of Shem. 
 The Great Taboo. 
 
 Dumaresq'B Daughter. 
 Duchess of Powysland. 
 Blood Royal. (piece. 
 Ivan Qreet's Master- 
 The Scxllywa:?. 
 This Mortal Coil. 
 At Market Value. 
 Under Sealed Orders. 
 
 By E. LESTER ARNOLD. 
 
 Phra the Phoenician. 
 
 BY FRAN4C BARRETT. 
 
 Found Ouilty. 
 A Recoiling Vengeance. 
 For Love and Honour. 
 John Ford, Ac. 
 Womanof IronBpace't* 
 The Hardin? Scandal. 
 A MisslDK Witness. 
 
 Fettered for Life. 
 Llbile Lady Linton. 
 Between Life A. Death. 
 Sin of Olga Zassoullch 
 Folly Morrison. 
 Lieut. Barnabas. 
 Honest Davie. 
 A Prodigal's Progress. 
 
 By FREDERICK BOYLE. 
 
 Camp Notas. I Chronicles of Moman't 
 
 Savage Life. I Land.
 
 30 CHATTO & WiNDUS, Publishers, in St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 
 
 Two-Shilling Novels — contxnucd. 
 
 By Sir VV. BESANT and J. RICE 
 
 Ready-Money Mortiboy I By Cella s Arbour 
 My Little Girl " " 
 
 With Harp and Crown. 
 This Son of Vulcan. 
 The Golden Butterfly. 
 The Monks of Thelema. 
 
 Chaplain of the Fleet. 
 The Seamy Side. 
 The Case of Mr. Lucraft. 
 In Trafalgar's Bav. 
 The Ten Years Tenant 
 
 By Sir WALTER BESANT. 
 
 Condi 
 
 All Sorts and 
 
 tlons of Men. 
 The Captains Room. 
 All in a Garden Fair. 
 Dorothy Forster. 
 Uncle Jack. 
 The World Went Very 
 
 Well Then. 
 Children of Gibeon. 
 Herr Paulus. 
 For Faith and Freedom. 
 To Call Her Mine. 
 The Master Craftsman. 
 
 The Bell of St. Paul 8. 
 The Holy Rose. 
 Armorelof Lyonease. 
 S.Katherlne s by Tower 
 Verbena Camellia Ste- 
 
 pbanotls. 
 The Ivory Gate. 
 The Rebel Queen. 
 Beyond the Dreams of 
 
 Avarice. 
 The Revolt of Man. 
 In Deacon's Orders. 
 The City of Refuge. 
 
 By AMBROSE BIERCE. 
 
 In the Midst of Life. 
 
 BY BRET HARTE. 
 
 Callfomlan Stories. 
 Gabriel Conroy. 
 Luck of Roaring Camp 
 An Heiress of Red Dog, 
 
 Flip. I Maruja. 
 
 A Phyllis of the Sierras. 
 A Waif of the Plains. 
 Ward of Golden Gate. 
 
 By ROBERT BUCHANAN. 
 
 Shadow of the Sword. 
 A Child of Nature. 
 God and the Man. 
 Love Me for Ever. 
 Foxglove Manor. 
 The Master of the Mine. 
 Annan Water. 
 
 The Martyrdom of Ma- 
 deline. 
 The New Abelard. 
 The Heir of Linne. 
 Woman and the Man. 
 Rachel Dene. | Matt. 
 Lady Kilpatrick. 
 By BUCHANAN and MURRAY. 
 The Charlatan. 
 
 By HALL CAINE. 
 The Shadow of a Crime. I The Deemster. 
 A Son of Hagar. | 
 
 By Commander CAMERON. 
 The Cruise of the 'Black Prince.' 
 
 By HAYDEN CARRUTH. 
 
 The Adventures of Jones. 
 
 By AUSTIN CLARE. 
 
 For the Love of a Lass. 
 
 By Mrs. ARCHER CLIVE. 
 
 Paul FeiToU. 
 
 Why Paul Ferroll Killed his Wife. 
 
 By MACLAREN COBBAN. 
 
 The Cure of Souls. | The Red Sultan. 
 
 By C. ALLSTON COLLINS. 
 
 The Bar Sinister. 
 
 By MORT. & FRANCES COLLINS. 
 
 Sweet Anne Page. i Sweet and Twenty. 
 
 Transmigration. The Village Comedy. 
 
 From Midnight to Mid You Play me False. 
 
 night. I Blacksmith and Scholar 
 
 A Fight with Fortune. I Frances. 
 
 By WILKIE COLLINS. 
 
 Armadale. | AfterDark, 
 
 No Name. 
 
 Antonina. 
 
 Basil. 
 
 Hide and Seek. 
 
 The Dead Secret. 
 
 Queen of Hearts. 
 
 Miss or Mrs. 7 
 
 The New Magdalen. 
 
 The Frozen Deep. 
 
 The Law and the Lady 
 
 The Two Destinies. 
 
 The Haunted Hotel. 
 
 A Rome's Life 
 
 My Miscellanies. 
 The Woman in White. 
 The Moonstone. 
 Man and Wife. 
 Poor Miss Finch. 
 The Fallen Leaves. 
 Jezebel 3 Daucrhter. 
 The Black Robe. 
 Heart and Science. 
 ■ I Say No I ■ 
 The Evil Genius. 
 Little Novels. 
 Le(;acy of Cain. 
 Blind Love. 
 
 By M. J. COLQUHOUN. 
 
 Every Inch a Soldier. 
 
 By C. EGBERT CRADDOCK. 
 
 The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains, 
 
 By MATT CRIM. 
 
 The Adventures of a irjair Rebel. 
 
 By B. M. CROKER. 
 
 Pretty Miss Neville 
 Diana Barrington. 
 
 'To Let, 
 
 A Bird of Passage. 
 Proper Pride. 
 A Family Likeness. 
 A Third Person. 
 
 Village Tales and Jongle 
 
 Tragedies. 
 Two Masters. 
 Mr. Jervis. 
 The Real Lady Hilda. 
 Married or Single 7 
 Interference. 
 
 In the Grip of the Law. 
 From Information Re- 
 ceived. 
 Tracked to Doom. 
 Link by Link 
 Suspicion Aroused. 
 Dark Deeds. 
 Riddles Read. 
 
 By ALPHONSR DAUDET. 
 
 The Evangelist; or, Port Salvation. 
 
 By DICK DONOVAN. 
 
 The Man-Hunter. 
 Tracked and Taken. 
 Caught at Last I 
 Wanted 1 
 Who Poisoned Hetty 
 
 Duncan 7 
 Man from Manchester, 
 
 A Detective's Triumphs , 
 
 The Mystery of Jamaica Terrace 
 The Chronicles of Michael Danevitch. 
 
 By Mrs. ANNIE EDWARDES. 
 
 A Point of Honour. | Archie Lovell. 
 
 By EDWARD EGOLESTON. 
 
 Roxy. 
 
 By G. MANVILLE FENN. 
 The New Mistress. I The Tiger Lily. 
 
 Witness to the Deed. | The White Virgin. 
 
 By PERCY FITZGERALD. 
 
 Bella Donna. I Second Mrs. TlUotson. 
 
 Never Forgotten. ) Seventy - five Brooke 
 
 Polly. I Street. 
 
 Fatal Zero. | The Lady of Brantome. 
 
 By P. FITZGERALD and others. 
 
 Strange Secrets. 
 
 By R. E. FRANCILLON. 
 
 Olympia. I King or Knave 7 
 
 One by One. Romances of the Law. 
 
 A Real Queen. Ropes of Sand. 
 
 Queen Cophetua. ' A Dog and his Shadow. 
 
 By HAROLD FREDERIC. 
 
 Seth s Brother s Wife. | The Lawton Girl. 
 
 Prefaced by Sir BARTLE FRERE. 
 
 Pandurang Hari. 
 
 By GILBERT GAUL. 
 
 A Strange Manuscript. 
 
 By CHARLES GIBBON. 
 
 Robin Gray. In Honour Bound. 
 
 Fancy Free. Flower of the Forest 
 
 Foi- Lack of Gold. The Braes of Yarrow. 
 
 What will World Say 7 The Golden Shaft. 
 
 In Love and War. Of High Degree. 
 
 For the King. By Mead and Stream 
 
 In Pastures Green. Loving a Dream. 
 
 Queen of the Meadow. A Hard Knot. 
 
 A Heart s Problem. Hearts Delight. 
 
 The Dead Heart. Blood Money. 
 
 By WILLIAM GILBERT. 
 
 James Duke. 
 
 By ERNEST GLANVILLE. 
 
 The Lost Heiress. I The Fcsaicker 
 
 A Fair Colonist.
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS. Publishers, in St. Martin's Lane. London, W.C. 31 
 
 Two-Shilling Novels — continued. 
 
 By Rev. S. BARING GOULD. 
 Eed Spider. I Eve. 
 
 By HENRY GREVILLE. 
 
 Nlkanor. 
 
 By ANDREW HALLIDAY. 
 
 Everyday Papers. 
 
 By THOMAS HARDY. 
 
 Under the Greenwood Tree. 
 
 By JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 
 
 Garth. - . - 
 
 EUice Quentin. 
 
 Fortune s Fool. 
 
 Miss Cadogna. 
 
 Sebastian Strome. 
 
 Dnit. 
 
 Beatrix Randolph. 
 Love— or a Name. 
 David Poindexter's Dia 
 
 appearance. 
 The Spectre of the 
 
 Camera. 
 
 By Sir ARTHUR HELPS. 
 Ivan de Biron. 
 
 By Q. A. HENTY. 
 
 Rojab the Juggler. 
 
 By HEADON HILL. 
 
 Zambra the Detective. 
 
 By JOHN HILL. 
 
 Treason Felony. 
 
 By Mrs. CASHEL HOEY. 
 
 The Lover's Creed. 
 
 By Mrs. GEORGE HOOPER. 
 
 The House of Raby. 
 
 By Mrs. HUNGERFORD. 
 
 A Maiden all Forlorn. 
 
 In Durance Vile. 
 
 Marvel. 
 
 A Mental Struggle. 
 
 A Modern Circe. 
 
 April's Lady. 
 
 Peter's Wife. 
 
 Lady 'Verner's Flight. 
 
 The Red-House Mystery 
 
 The Three Graces. 
 
 Unsatisfactory Lover. 
 
 Lady Patty. 
 
 Nora Oreina. 
 
 Professor's Experiment. 
 By Mrs. ALFRED HUNT. 
 Thornicroft's Model. I SelfCondemned. 
 That Other Person. | The Leaden Casket. 
 
 By HARRIETT JAY. 
 
 The Dark Colleen. | Queen of Connaught 
 
 By MARK KERSHAW. 
 
 Colonial Facts and Fictions. 
 
 By R. ASHE KING. 
 
 A Drawn Game. J Passion's Slave. 
 
 •The Wearing of the | Bell Barry. 
 Green.' | 
 
 By EDMOND LEPELLETIER. 
 
 Madame Sans Gene. 
 
 By JOHN LEYS. 
 
 The Lindsays. 
 
 By E. LYNN LINTON. 
 Patricia Kemball. -. • . 
 
 The 'World Well Lost. 
 Under which Lord? 
 Fasten Carew. 
 • My Love I ' 
 lone. 
 With a Silken Thread. 
 
 By HENRY W. LUCY. 
 
 Oldeon Fleyce. 
 
 By JUSTIN McCarthy 
 
 The Atonement of Learn 
 
 Dundas. 
 Rebel of the Family. 
 Sowing the Wind. 
 The One Too Many. 
 Dnlcie Everton. 
 
 Dear Lady Disdain. 
 Waterdale Neichbours. 
 My Enemy's Daughter 
 A Fair Saxon. 
 Linley Rochford. 
 MlBi Misanthrope. 
 CamleU. 
 
 Douna Quixote. 
 Maid of Athens. 
 The Comet of a Season. 
 The Dictator. 
 Red Diamonds. 
 The Riddle Ring. 
 
 By HUGH MACCOLL. 
 
 Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet. 
 
 By GEORGE MACDONALD. 
 
 Heather and Snow. 
 
 By AGNES MACDONELL. 
 
 Quaker Cousins. 
 
 By W. H. MALLOCK. 
 
 The New Republic. 
 
 By BRANDER MATTHEWS. 
 
 A Secret of the Sea. 
 
 Bv L. T. MEADE. 
 
 A Soldier of Fortune. 
 
 By LEONARD MERRICK. 
 
 The Man who was Good. 
 
 By JEAN MIDDLEMASS. 
 
 Touch and Go. | Mr. Dorillion. 
 
 By Mrs. MOLESWORTH. 
 
 Hathercourt Rectory. 
 
 By J. E. MUDDOCK. 
 
 StorlesWeird and Won- I From the Bosom of the 
 
 derful. Deep. 
 
 The Dead Man s Secret. I 
 
 By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY. 
 
 A Bit of Human Nature. 
 First Person Singular. 
 Bob Martin's LittleGirl 
 Time's Revenges. 
 A Wasted Crime. 
 In Direst Peril. 
 Mount Despair. 
 A Capful 0' Nails 
 
 A Model Father. 
 
 Joseph's Coat. 
 
 Coals of Fire. 
 
 'Val Strange. | Hearts. 
 
 Old Blazer's Hero. 
 
 The Way of the World. 
 
 Cynic Fortune. 
 
 A Life 3 Atonement. 
 
 By the Gate of the Sea. 
 
 By MURRAY and HERMAN. 
 
 One Traveller Returns. I The Bishops' Bible. 
 Paul Jones s Alias. | 
 
 By HUME NISBET. 
 
 ■ Bail Up I ' I Dr.Bernard St. Vincent. 
 
 By W. E. NORRI5. 
 
 Saint Ann's. | Billy Bellew. 
 
 By ALICE O'HANLON. 
 
 The Unforeseen. 1 Chance 7 or Fate 7 
 
 By GEORGES OHNET. 
 
 Dr. Rameau. I A Weird Gift. 
 
 A Last Love. { 
 
 By Mrs. OLIPHANT. 
 
 Whiteladles. I The Greatest Heiress In 
 
 The Primrose Path. | England. 
 
 By OUIDA. 
 
 Two Lit. Wooden Shoes. 
 Moths. 
 Bimbi. 
 Pipistrello. 
 A Village Commune. 
 W.anda. 
 Othmar 
 Frescoes. 
 In Maremma. 
 GuiUleroy. 
 RuiSno. 
 Syrlin. 
 
 Santa Barbara. 
 Two Oflonilers. 
 Ouidri s Wisdom, Wit, 
 I and Pathos. 
 
 Held in Bondage. 
 
 Strathmore. 
 
 Chandos. 
 
 Idalia. 
 
 Under Two Flags. 
 
 Cecil Castlemaine sGage 
 
 Tricotrin. 
 
 Puck. 
 
 Folle Farine. 
 
 A Dog of Flanders. 
 
 Pascarel. 
 
 Signa. 
 
 Princess Napraxlne. 
 
 In a Winter City. 
 
 Ariadne. 
 
 Friendship. 
 
 By MARGARET AGNKS PAUL. 
 
 Gentle and Simple. 
 
 By Mrs. CAAIPBELL PRAED. 
 
 The Romance of n Station. 
 
 The Soul of Countes.i Adrian. 
 
 Out' aw and Lawmaker | Mrs. TregaikUi. 
 
 Christina Chard. |
 
 33 CilATTO & WINDUS, Publishers, iii St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. 
 
 Two-Shilling Novels — continued. 
 By RICHARD PRYCE. 
 
 Miss Maxwell's ASectiona. 
 
 By JAMES PAYN. 
 
 Bentinck s Tutor. 
 
 Murphy 8 Master. 
 
 A County Family. 
 
 At Her Mercy. 
 
 Cecil 8 Tryst. 
 
 T'le Clytfards of Clyffe. 
 
 The Foster Brothers. 
 
 Fouud Dead. 
 
 The Best of Husbands. 
 
 Walter s Word. 
 
 Halves. 
 
 Fallen Fortunes. 
 
 Humorous Stories. 
 
 £200 Reward. 
 
 A Marine Residence. 
 
 Mirk Abbey 
 
 By Proxy. 
 
 Under One Roof. 
 
 High Spirits. 
 
 Carlyon's Year. 
 
 From Exile. 
 
 For Cash Only. 
 
 Kft. 
 
 The Canou'i Ward. 
 
 The Talk of the Town. 
 Holiday Tasks. 
 A Perfect Treasure. 
 What He Cost Her. 
 A Confidential Agent. 
 Glowworm Tales. 
 The Burnt Million. 
 Sunny Stories. 
 Lost Sir Massingberd. 
 A Woman s Vengeance. 
 The Family Scapegrace. 
 Gwendoline s Harvest. 
 Like Father, Like Son. 
 Married Beneath Him. 
 Not Wooed, but Won. 
 Less Black than Were 
 
 Painted. 
 Some Private Views. 
 A Grape from a Thorn. 
 The Mystery of Mir- 
 
 bridge. 
 The Word and the Will, 
 A Prince of the Blood, 
 A Trving Patient. 
 
 By CHARLES READE. 
 
 A Terrible Temptation. 
 
 Foul Play. 
 
 The Wandering Heir. 
 
 Hard Cash. 
 
 Singleheart and Double- 
 face. 
 
 Good Stories of Man and 
 other Animals. 
 
 Peg Woffington. 
 
 GiiiUth Gaunt. 
 
 A Perilous Secret. 
 
 A Simpleton. 
 
 Readiana. 
 
 A Woman-Hater. 
 
 It is Never Too Late to 
 
 Mend. 
 Christie Johnstone. 
 The Double Marriage. 
 Put Yourself in His 
 
 Place 
 Love Me Little, Love 
 
 Me Long. 
 The Cloister and the 
 
 Hearth. 
 Course of True Love. 
 The Jilt. 
 The Autobiography of 
 
 a Thief. 
 
 By Mrs. J 
 
 Weird Stories. 
 Fairv Water. 
 Her Mother s Darling. 
 The Prince of Wales's 
 Garden Party. 
 
 H. RIDDELL. 
 
 The Uninhabited House. 
 I The Mystery in Palace 
 I Gardens. 
 
 The Nun s Corse. 
 
 Idle Tales. 
 
 By F. W. ROBINSON. 
 
 Women are Strange. I The Woman in the Uark 
 The Hands of Justice, i 
 
 By W. CLARK RUSSELL. 
 
 Round the Galley Fire. : An Ocean Tragedy. 
 
 On the Fo'k sle Head. 
 In the Middle Watch. 
 A Voyage to the Cape. 
 A Book for the Ham- I 
 
 mock. I 
 
 The Mystery of the i 
 
 • Ocean Star.' 
 The Romance of Jenny | 
 
 Harlowe. I 
 
 My Shipmate Louise, 
 Alone onWideWide Sea, 
 Good Ship Mohock.' 
 Tne Phantom Death. 
 Is He the Man ? 
 Heart of Oak. 
 The Convict Ship^ 
 The Tale of the Ten. 
 The Last Entry. 
 
 By DORA RUSSELL. 
 
 A Country Sweetheart. 
 
 By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. 
 Oaalight and Daylight. 
 
 By GEORGE R. SIMS. 
 
 The Ring o' Bells. 
 Mary Jane's Memoirs. 
 Mary Jane Married, 
 Tales of To day. 
 Dramas of Life. 
 Tlnkletopji Crime. 
 My Two Wives. 
 
 Zeph. 
 
 Memoirs of a Landlady. 
 Sci-ues from the Show. 
 The 10 Commandments. 
 Dagonet Abroad. 
 Rogues and Vagabonds. 
 
 By ARTHUR SKETCHLEY. 
 
 A Match in the Dark. 
 
 By HAVVLEY SMART. 
 
 Without Love or Licence. I The P'unger. 
 Beatrice and Benedick. Long Odds. 
 The Master of Rathkelly. | 
 
 By T. VV. SPEIGHT. 
 
 The Mysteries of Heron Back to Life, 
 
 Dyke, The LoudwaterTrajedy. 
 
 The Golden Hoop. j Burgo s Romance. 
 
 Hoodwinked. Quittance in Full. 
 
 By Devious Ways. I A Husband from the Sea 
 
 By ALAN ST. AUBYN. 
 
 A Fellow of Trinity. I Orchard Damerel, 
 The Junior Dean, In the Face of the World. 
 
 Master of St, Benedict's The Tremlett Diamonds. 
 To His Own Master. I 
 
 By R. A. STERNDALE. 
 
 The Afghan Knife. 
 
 By R. LOUIS STEVENSON. 
 
 New Arabian Nights. 
 
 By ROBERT SURTEES. 
 
 Handley Cross, 
 
 By BERTHA THOMAS. 
 
 The Violin-Player. 
 
 By WALTER THORNBURV. 
 
 Tales for the Marines. 
 
 By T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. 
 
 Diamond Cut Diamond. 
 
 By F. ELEANOR TROLLOPE. 
 
 Like Ships upon the I Anne Furness. 
 Sea. I Mabel's Progress. 
 
 By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 
 
 Frau Frohmann. 
 Marion Fay. 
 Kept in the Dark. 
 The Way We Live Now 
 The Land-Leaguers. 
 
 The American Senator. 
 Mr. Scarborough's 
 
 Family. 
 OoldenLion of Granpere 
 
 By MARK TWAIN. 
 
 Stolen White Elephant. 
 Life on the Mississippi. 
 The Prince and the 
 
 Pauper. 
 A Yankee at the Court 
 
 of King Arthur, 
 £1,800.000 Bank. Note. 
 
 A Pleasure Trip on the 
 
 Continent, 
 The Gilded Age. 
 Huckleberry Finn. 
 MarkTwain s Sketches, 
 Tom Sawyer. 
 A Tramp Abroad. 
 
 By C. C. FRASER-TYTLER. 
 
 Mistress Judith. 
 
 By SARAH TYTLER. 
 
 Bride 3 Pass | Lady Bell The Huguenot Family 
 Buried Diamonds. The Blackball Ghosts 
 
 St, Mungo 3 City. What SheCameThrough 
 
 Noblesse Oblige. j Beauty and the Beast. 
 
 Disappeared, i Citoyenne J.^queline. 
 
 By ALLEN UPWARD. 
 
 The Queen against Owen, | Prince of Balkiatan. 
 ' God Save the Queen I ' 
 
 By WILLIAM WESTALL. 
 
 Trust-Money. 
 
 By Mrs. F. H. WILLIAMSON. 
 
 A Child Widow. 
 
 By J. S. WINTER. 
 
 Cavalry Life. | Re vimeutal Legends. 
 
 By H. F. WOOD. 
 
 The Passenger from Scotland Yard. 
 The Engll3hm.an of th<; Rue Cain. 
 
 Umwin Brothers, Printers, 27, Pilgrim Street, London, E.C,
 
 
 
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