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Title: Two happy years in Ceylon
Author: C. F. Gordon Cumming
Release date: March 17, 2026 [eBook #78228]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Chatto & Windus, 1901
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78228
Credits: Peter Becker, KD Weeks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
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Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are
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_OPINIONS OF THE PRESS_
ON
TWO HAPPY YEARS IN CEYLON.
‘SINCE EMERSON-TENNENT’S MONUMENTAL 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 Cumming.
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 advantage 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 Encylopædia” 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. Exhaustive and authoritative,
full and faithful, are the adjectives necessary to describe the methods
in which Miss Gordon Cumming has dealt with the interesting subject of
her book. We have read no better book on Ceylon.’—ACADEMY.
‘Miss Gordon Cumming 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 encountered.... 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 Cumming.’—DAILY TELEGRAPH.
‘Miss Gordon Cumming 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 Miss 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.’—
ATHENÆUM.
‘Her book is one of the best on the subject, for giving 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.
‘Miss Gordon Cumming 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 GUARDIAN.
‘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 cyclopædia of the island in its every
aspect; and her word-pictures are to the full as correct in execution as
her paintings.... It is at once instinct with beauty of description and
crammed full of information.’—EUROPEAN MAIL.
‘A very 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 brightness which irresistibly communicates
itself to the reader.’—BIRMINGHAM MERCURY.
‘A charming book. Miss Gordon Cumming 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 enjoying 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 Cumming 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 Cumming 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 guidebook.’—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 Cumming 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 MAGAZINE.
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.’
[Illustration: SHRINE ON THE SUMMIT OF ADAM’S PEAK, AND THE SHADOW OF
THE PEAK.]
TWO HAPPY YEARS
IN CEYLON
BY
C. F. GORDON CUMMING
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 EGYPT’ ETC.
[Illustration]
A NEW EDITION
WITH 28 ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR, AND A MAP
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
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 Highlanders.
‘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 works,
that the several writers have retained such sweet memories of
‘Moonlit 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.
Although, by comparison with that of others, my own term in the Earthly
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 1
I. MY FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE TROPICS 12
II. COLOMBO 25
III. COLOMBO 52
IV. THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN 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
XXI. SOUTHERN COAST 442
XXII. RETURN TO COLOMBO 466
XXIII. NATIVE POLICE 477
XXIV. IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS 497
XXV. ASCENT OF ADAM’S PEAK 523
XXVI. THE TUG OF WAR—THE BATTLE OF DIVERSE CREEDS IN CEYLON 548
XXVII. CHRISTIAN WORK IN CEYLON 579
INDEX 609
ILLUSTRATIONS
SHRINE ON THE SUMMIT OF ADAM’S PEAK, AND THE SHADOW OF _Frontispiece_
THE PEAK
MAP OF CEYLON _to face 1
page_
BLOSSOM OF THE COCOA PALM ” 61
OUR HOUSE-BOAT ON THE LUNA-OYA ” 102
VALLEY OF THE MAHA-VELLI GANGA ” 128
Showing the Railway and Satinwood Bridges at
Peradeniya, 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,
Government House, &c.
AVENUE OF INDIA-RUBBER TREES, PERADENIYA ” 187
GIGANTIC BAMBOOS, PERADENIYA ” 190
THE MAHA-VELLI GANGA, FROM THE SATINWOOD BRIDGE (BAMBOO ” 216
FOLIAGE)
THE RUANWELI DAGOBA, ANURADHAPURA, 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 ” 306
THE WATA-DÁGÉ, OR ROUND TREASURE-HOUSE, POLLANARUA ” 390
Looking to the Sat-mahal-prasada, or seven-storied
building
THE JETAWANARAMA AND THE KIRI VIHARA AT POLLANARUA ” 393
THE GAL VIHARA: ROCK TEMPLE AT POLLANARUA ” 395
Sitting Buddha is 15 feet above pedestal; erect,
23 feet; recumbent, 46 feet
THE SAAMI ROCK AT TRINCOMALEE—WORSHIP AT SUNSET ” 407
THE LILY SHORE, NEAR TRINCOMALEE ” 421
THE NILWALLA RIVER AT MATARA ” 445
COCOA PALMS: SHORE OF COLOMBO LAKE ” 476
COFFEE FIELDS ON THE SLOPES OF ALLEGALLA PEAK ” 500
On the summit there is a _partly_ natural
indentation which duplicates _the_ Footprint
ADAM’S PEAK FROM MASKELIYA ” 533
--------------
THE CASTLE JERMYN 77
THE WORSHIPFUL TOOTH 207
BUDDHA GUARDED BY THE COBRA, ROCK TEMPLE, ELLA PASS 293
A FOREST SANCTUARY 399
Offerings of red pottery to the God of the Tank at
Minery
TALIPOT PALM IN BLOSSOM _On cover_
[Illustration:
CEYLON
Scale 1:1393329, 22 English Miles to 1 Inch.
London: Chatto & Windus.
]
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[1] 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 cunning and mighty
hunter, beloved by the wild tribes.
-----
Footnote 1:
‘Wild Men and Wild Beasts.’ By Colonel Gordon Cumming. Published by
David Douglas, Edinburgh.
-----
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 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 European 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 suffice to throw the population into a fever of
excitement.
In those days the mails from London came _viâ_ 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.[2]
-----
Footnote 2:
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 of 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 consumption 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.
-----
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 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 purposed 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, touching
Ceylon at Point de Galle _en 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,[3] I very gladly accepted his invitation to return to
Ceylon on a leisurely visit, finding headquarters under his hospitable
roof, and thence exploring such parts of the isle as had special
interest for me.
-----
Footnote 3:
The Right Rev. Hugh W. Jermyn, now Bishop of Brechin and Primus of
Scotland.
-----
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 continue, the true Earthly Paradise.
On my return to Scotland, after widely extended travels, a selection 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 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 notes 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 follow 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 unbroken 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 districts is coffee
successfully proving its claim to renewed public confidence. There is
apparently, however, no doubt that Ceylon will henceforth be
emphatically distinguished in the manner so happily described by the
present Governor, 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 23 lb. 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![4]
-----
Footnote 4:
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, commenced with an offer of 1_l._ 1_s._
per lb.; as the price advanced to 8_l._ many buyers dropped out, and
at this price about five wholesale dealers were willing to purchase.
Offers were then made up to about 9_l._ 9_s._ 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_l._ 12_s._ 6_d._ 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_l._ per lb. Even this
surprising price was, however, very soon surpassed, for the next
consignment of ‘golden tips’ from Gartmore fetched 25_l._ 10_s._ per
lb. This was quickly followed by the sale of a small box from the
Kellie estate at 30_l._ per lb.; while, on August 25, another parcel
was actually sold at 35_l._ per lb.
-----
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,
1891 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_l._, of which about 10,000_l._ covers all expenses, so that
the revenue profits to an extent far exceeding the most golden
expectations. In 1888 these fisheries realized 80,424_l._ less 8,000_l._
of expenses. Such sums had only been realized four 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_l._, less
1,489_l._ 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 considerable portion of the ancient system of
irrigation; and already the wisdom of the measure is abundantly proved
by the transformation 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
hospitals, 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 forsaken—a change that was
not effected until many a noble vessel had proved to her cost the
lurking dangers of numerous patches of coral within the harbour, rising
from the ocean-bed almost 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
considerable deviation from their course; so it may be that as the
commerce 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.[5]
-----
Footnote 5:
Coir is the coarse fibre obtained from the outer husk of the
cocoa-nut, which so abounds on the southern coast.
-----
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
33,505.
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 simultaneously 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 Castilla, 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 own 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 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 ingenious 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, 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 transformation 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 prodigiously 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 Wellewatta 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 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. 161.
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 (though more of
a reformatory character) have been established 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 elephants.[6] Therefore, for all
such impressions, visit Ceylon first and India afterwards.
-----
Footnote 6:
For details of a never-to-be-forgotten year in Hindoostan, see ‘In the
Himalayas, and on Indian Plains.’ By C. F. Gordon Cumming. Published
by Chatto & Windus.
-----
But, for archæological 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.
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 opposite
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 infinitely varied verdure.
Creamy blossoms with large glossy leaves; crimson and gold gleaming like
gems, from their setting of delicate 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 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 log, which,
like 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 portrait 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 perfect
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 elements in
the crowd of brown men, each representing totally different branches of
the human family. The clear, sienna-coloured Singhalese, 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 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 population.
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 position, being the most
energetic traders of the Isle. They claim to be descended from Arabian
merchants who settled in Ceylon two thousand 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 merchants 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;[7] 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.
-----
Footnote 7:
For full details of these, see ‘In the Himalayas,’ by C. F. Gordon
Cumming, pp. 23, 24. Published by Chatto & Windus.
-----
In truth, a new-comer is rather apt to think that all the Singhalese 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 _comboy_, and a more inconvenient
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 convenient 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 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 detestable 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 population 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 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—magnificent 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 dragonflies.
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 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 ingenious 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 wearisome, for no other reason than just because they
_are_ sounds! It 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 conscious that the noisy
bipeds had likewise all departed with the daylight, 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’hôte_ 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 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 animalcules
which must exist to produce these mysterious submarine illuminations! 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 commonest 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 harvest 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 restlessly till
they attained to a _nirvana_ of their own, and evaporated altogether!
At daybreak we again hailed one of those marvellous native outriggers,
and, pointing to a bay of pure white sand, overshadowed to the water’s
edge with cocoa-palms, made our brown brethren understand 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 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 find 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, 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 heavenward 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 endless profusion.
Then, as we scrambled up the rough narrow path, there burst 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 _Gall_,[8] and
all its sorrowful partings from those whose paths lay farther and
farther towards China and Japan and the uttermost isles.
-----
Footnote 8:
The name of Galle is derived from the Singhalese _galla_, a rock.
-----
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 Plymouth harbour, and her passengers
explored the beauties of Cornwall and Devon till another steamer was
ready to take them on their journey.[9]
-----
Footnote 9:
See ‘Via Cornwall to Egypt.’ By C. F. Gordon Cumming. Published by
Messrs. Chatto & Windus.
-----
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 neared the beautiful Isle, some of us
were on deck with the earliest glimmer 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 succession 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.
But to see the poor beasts who have recently undergone this process,
literally 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-stealing, 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 performed in the open street, especially the
work of the Tamil barber, who squats on his feet facing his victim, who
likewise 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 recently 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 about two miles from the Fort, which is the
great business centre. The College stands in the same compound,[10] 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
Christians in Mutwal.
-----
Footnote 10:
From the Portuguese _campao_, an enclosure.
-----
Between the Cathedral and the College stands the Bishop’s house,[11]
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.
-----
Footnote 11:
This has been given over by the present Bishop to the Warden of the
College.
-----
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
families—_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 Society, are among the details which
suggest the varied interests of boy-life.
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 neighbourhood 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 excited 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 picturesque
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 _dolce 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 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 recognised 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 of 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.
To the same family belongs the huge fan-shaped ‘Traveller’s Tree,’[12]
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,[13] 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.
-----
Footnote 12:
_Ravenala madagascariensis._
Footnote 13:
_Musa sapientum._
-----
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
_Suriya-wanzae_, 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
Linnæus named this tree _Hibiscus populneus_, but modern botanists have
reclassed it as _Thespesia populnea_. 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.[14]
-----
Footnote 14:
_Liriodendron tulipifera._
-----
To me the Suriya recalls pleasant visions of the South Pacific isles,
where it grows abundantly. In Fiji it is called the _Vau_,[15] 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.
-----
Footnote 15:
‘At Home in Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 83. By C. F. Gordon Cumming. Published
by W. Blackwood & Sons.
-----
Both Galle and Colombo are indebted to the Dutch for these 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. 1518. 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, accompanied 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. 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 was 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 Fort. 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, when 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 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 procession of living skeletons,
many of whom were scarcely able to totter on their poor legs, swollen by
_beri-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
first 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, and most
carefully cultivated flowering trees and shrubs. Some such groups form
memory-pictures 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 ferrea_) 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 unpleasant
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, effectually 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 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, ‘the
Kalany 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. 1517, 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 we are reminded by a circular
race-stand in the centre. For these, however, a better site is now
proposed). Carriages 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 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.M. 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 frequency 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, threatening 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.
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 sunshine,
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 sunshine.
Just beyond Galle Face lies Colpetty (or, as it is now spelt,
Kollupitiya), 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 off 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 wherein
rats and rat-snakes dwell in anything but love, and often a great wobble
and commotion overhead tells of a battle _à outrance_. 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 comfortable 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.
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,
garlanding 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 overhanging 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 forget 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 unobtrusive 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 eggs 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 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 bookcase, 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 sweetmeats 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 foundation
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 desirable 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 consideration 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—anthills perhaps six feet high of
most intricate internal construction, divided into separate
compartments, and these into cells, all connected by passages, and all
built of the finest clay, which the creatures 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 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 onslaught 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 foragers. 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 Government 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
indication of the general neglect which has suffered these once
jealously guarded gardens to degenerate into a tangled jungle, rather
suggestive 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 insignificant, 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.
These berries, 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 circumference. 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 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 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 acclimatised, its seeds being carried by birds to more
remote inland districts. Hence perhaps the reason for the Dutch law
against shooting 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. The Portuguese
seem to have sent out military escorts from their various forts to guard
the Chaliyas in their arduous work of collecting the _Maha badda_ or
great tax; and the _Capitan de Canela’_, 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 shilling 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 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 cinnamon culture, and the shrub grows
well even on poor soil. Nevertheless, 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
officials and numerous native officials, 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 (_Myristica 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!
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 ubiquitous. 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 reception in his
pretty bungalow. He had sent messengers in every direction to search for
specimens of the most beautiful and interesting 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 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.[16] He also gave me the following summary of
Ceylonese reptiles:—
-----
Footnote 16:
Ceylon is truly a happy hunting-ground for collectors. Thus in March
1889 a German naturalist, Herr Frühstorfer, 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, &c.), 3,000 dragon-flies, 1,000
spiders and centipedes, and all manner of land and sea snakes; also a
fine collection of shells.
-----
‘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 properties
supposed to belong to them, their flesh and blood being deemed an
antidote for infantile sickness! The ‘milk-turtle’ (_pal amai_) or
terrapin, live in tanks and wells, and are said to be useful as
scavengers, devouring insects and their larvæ.
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, however, 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 commerce is
the hawk’s-bill, 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 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); consequently I believe
they do not hibernate here, but live in consciousness 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 offering 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
possession 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 inscription
(doubtless in Spanish): ‘Captured in the year 1700 by Fernando 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 century 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.
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 September 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 _wedaralas_, which unhappily proved ineffectual.
Specially interesting to a new-comer in the Isle were the beautiful
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 furniture 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 Calamander,
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-building, and
even for making bridges, notably that beautiful bridge which spans the
Maha-velli-ganga at Peradeniya, near Kandy. One rare 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 Kaluwara 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 traffic, this cumbersome old-fashioned approach to the capital is
felt to be out of keeping with the times. While the stoppage 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 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 100 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, inasmuch as it was
built in the year A.D. 1240, and rebuilt about A.D. 1301, on the site of
one which dated from about 500 B.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 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 exclusive 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 _Upasampada_, 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 political
influences of Portugal, determined 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 missionaries.
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 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 ordination 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 thousands 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, _O-mi-to-fu_ is the charm; in Thibet, _O-mani-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.
[Illustration: BLOSSOM OF THE COCOA PALM.]
The walls of the Kelani temple are covered with painting, representing
divers legends. Before all the altars are heaped offerings of fragrant,
but, alas! fading flowers and delicate ferns, jessamine, roses, 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[17] 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.)
-----
Footnote 17:
_Plumeria acutifolia._
-----
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[18] 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.
-----
Footnote 18:
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
the flowers 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!’
-----
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.[19]
-----
Footnote 19:
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.
-----
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 importance
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 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 neutrality in matters of
creed by disestablishing the Episcopal (previously the State) Church of
Ceylon, in 1889 it ordered the election of committees of Buddhist laymen
to take strict supervision of the enormous revenues of the Buddhist
temples, not in order to secure their expenditure 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 therewith. 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 were bound to worship the
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 conditions regarding their
occupation) to the Buddhist Vihares and Hindoo Dewales, which, while
theoretically antagonistic, are in fact inextricably 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 Kandyan chiefs,
whereby Sir Robert Brownrigg, as Britain’s representative, undertook
that she should maintain and protect the rites and places of worship of
the Buddhist religion—an iniquitous compact with idolatry, which surely
ought to have been at once repudiated 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 politically 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 empowered to
free themselves from compulsory labour by commutation—_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 rendering 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 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 discharged 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 Nillemés_ (_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 Sumanagala, 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 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 intimated 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 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 enshrined 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.[20]
-----
Footnote 20:
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 Cumming 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 Castle, in which is shown the hollow wherein a live
frog was found when the marble was hewn from its quarry.
-----
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 caskets, the innermost one 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 _entrée_ 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 also 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.[21] Old
inhabitants tell us that _they have never known this day to be 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_.
-----
Footnote 21:
The Tamil’s great 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.
-----
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 processionists 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 of _setting the eyes in a large new image of Buddha
reclining_, in the Vihara or temple at Kotahena (in Colombo).[22]
-----
Footnote 22:
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 gentlemen 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, but 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.’
-----
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 a set of
the ‘Atapirikara’—_i.e._ 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 internally, and has
risen to a position of importance in the Buddhist revival) stands within
a few hundred yards of the Roman Catholic cathedral,[23] 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 Friday.
-----
Footnote 23:
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.
-----
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 _à la_ St. Bartholomew, assembled, determined
to prevent the procession from passing their cathedral. A very serious
riot ensued, which resulted in one person being killed; and thirty,
including 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 working 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 enormous
_perehera_ round the city.
On Sunday, the 28th, 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 of the pyre, which was
then mounted by a succession of priests and laymen, who addressed the
kneeling crowds around. These at each telling sentence raised their
clasped hands heavenward, exclaiming ‘Saadu, Saadu!’ the united voices
of this great multitude producing 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.’
Perhaps 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 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 labyrinthine
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 Kalatura to Colombo,
and thence right north up to Kalpitiya. Such delightful house-boats as
those in which foreign residents in China make their water-excursions,
are here unknown luxuries, but with a little 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 difficulties in arranging
‘house-room’ for guests in luxurious British homes, I often remember
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 playground 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 resist giving
it an egg as a great treat, though well aware that I 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.[24]
-----
Footnote 24:
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 wrought on sugar, coffee, cocoa,
and other plantations by the great rat-army, ranged from £100,000 to
£150,000 per annum, till in 1872 Mr. Espeut 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 with _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.
-----
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 mongoose
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 mongoose.’)
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 ingenious
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 of quaint seeds, shells, and
divers curiosities.
[Illustration: THE CASTLE JERMYN]
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 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 which 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,[25] 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 delicate
pink. The fragrant white blossom hangs on a pink stalk. It seems to
flourish specially in marshy localities.
-----
Footnote 25:
_Anæctochilus setaceus._
-----
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 hooting 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, 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 _eribuddu_, 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 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 muslin petticoats, which effectually
protected our heads, though an incautious 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, overshadowed
by tall palms, and the water covered with very varied boats and canoes.
Leaving the town, our quiet water-way still lay beneath overarching
palm-trees, and between banks matted with the dark glossy foliage and
large lilac blossoms of the goat’s-foot ipomœa, 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 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 prepossessing.
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 Singhalese man, woman, or child seems
ever to drink cow’s milk, though a 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 fascinating 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 lilies, 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 discovered
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 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.[26]
-----
Footnote 26:
If there is abrasion of the skin, equal parts of oxide of zinc and
carbonate of magnesia is very soothing.
-----
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 handkerchief, 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
footstep 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 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 constant
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 off 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-godmothers 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 people crowded to the banks to see the novel sight of European
ladies travelling in a padda-boat.[27] 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!
-----
Footnote 27:
Rice-cargo-boat.
-----
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 unfastened, and fell in rich masses
over his shoulders. The effect was most artistic, but unfortunately in
Ceylon it is not considered respectful 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, Tamil 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 presence of a
superior, and an extra large turban indicates extra reverence. 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 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 distinctions, 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 mainland. 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 approaching 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 latter
contrive to niche themselves in the rough bark of the former, and their
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 attractive
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 fastened 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
the old Wanderoos,[28] 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 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,[29] whose low, melodious cooing is one of the
most soothing influences of the forest.
-----
Footnote 28:
_Presbytes cephalopterus._
Footnote 29:
Called by the Singhalese _Neela-cobeya_.
-----
Of the five varieties of the great monkey clan, which are found in
Ceylon, four are classed as Wanderoos: the largest and most powerful 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 resemble 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 neighbouring
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, where 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 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,[30] 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.
-----
Footnote 30:
_Ardeola leucoptera._
-----
CHAPTER V
THE CRUISE OF THE CASTLE JERMYN
Hedgehog-grass—Strychnine—Snake temples—Kalpitiya—Orchilla dye—_Bêche de
mer_—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 hedgehog-grass, or
_Spinifex 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 promise of future
fertility to the newest and most arid sandbanks, which they bind
together much in the same way as does the abundant lilac convolvulus.
A very marked feature of the vegetation along the coast is a handsome
tree[31] 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
homœopathic 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.
-----
Footnote 31:
_Strychnos nux-vomica._
-----
Strange to say, the only other member of the strychnine family[32]
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.
Nevertheless, the part of wisdom in jungle travelling is NEVER to drink
water which has not been both boiled and filtered.
-----
Footnote 32:
_Strychnos potatorum_, called by the Tamils _tettan-cotta_, and by the
Singhalese _ingini_.
-----
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 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.[33] 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.
-----
Footnote 33:
_See_ Chapter XII., Tree and Serpent Worship.
-----
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 the 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.[34]
-----
Footnote 34:
For kindred serpent-lore in Scotland, see _In the Hebrides_ , by C. F.
Gordon Cumming, page 54. Published by Chatto & Windus.
-----
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. 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 indignity, 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-worship 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, trusting that they may
land in safety elsewhere. One of our friends, who occupied a charming
house near the mouth of the Kelani River, mentioned, 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
curious instance of this was recorded by Major Skinner in 1858, at which
time a certain rich man living near Negombo, and who liked to keep his
money in his own house, protected it by keeping tame cobras gliding
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 morrow 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 ugliness 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 Mohammedans)
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.
Mohammedanism is, however, so unobtrusive here, that I noted with
special interest the lights which at nightfall gleamed on all the tombs
near the mosque, and which we were told are kindled every Tuesday and
Thursday night in memory of the dead.
Nature supplemented this poetic 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 gleaming
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 afterwards
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, many 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,[35] from which a rich blue dye is obtained. This lichen 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.
-----
Footnote 35:
_Roccella Montagnei._
-----
Here and there on the shore were piles of bleached corals, such as many
a British collector would prize; but which here were only waiting to be
burnt, and so converted into lime for chewing with betel and areca (that
most obnoxious habit which makes the whole population 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
_bêche de mer_ or trepang (_holothurians_), 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 _gourmet_ 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,[36] 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.
-----
Footnote 36:
_Collocalia francica._
-----
Short as was our stay at Kalpitiya, many kind people—Tamil, Singhalese,
and Burgher—brought us miscellaneous gifts,—the dear little baby
mongoose aforesaid, both land and water turtles, shells, 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,[37] 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.
-----
Footnote 37:
_Anacardium occidentale._
-----
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 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
(_i.e._ about £80,000). 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 consumption 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 (_i.e._
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 toilsome bullock-cart
and coolie transport, the price is enormously increased; 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 traffic.
Besides these salt-works on the west coast, there are others at
Hambantotte 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, about eighteen
inches long,[38] 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.
-----
Footnote 38:
_The Dewe_ (or holy) _Boraloowah_.
-----
A very handsome parrot-fish,[39] 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,[40] 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.
-----
Footnote 39:
_Ratoo-Girawah._
Footnote 40:
_Panoo-Girawah._
-----
When one hears of a ‘squirrel parrot,’[41] 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,[42] which averages three feet in
length, has a blue-green back and bright green tail, grey under side,
and yellow head, with sienna fins; but it is covered all over with a
honeycomb pattern of bright yellow.
-----
Footnote 41:
_Lena-Girawah._
Footnote 42:
_Laboo-Gira-wah._
-----
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[43] 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.
-----
Footnote 43:
_Mil-Talapat-Girawah._
-----
Perhaps the most marvellously variegated of all these creatures is the
flower parrot,[44] 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
patches of yellow. The fins are straw-coloured, the head has crimson and
bright green stripes radiating from the eye.
-----
Footnote 44:
_Mal-Girawah._
-----
Even the excellent herring of Ceylon[45] 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.
-----
Footnote 45:
_Pookoorowah._
-----
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 proportion 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 congregations 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 puts to sea on Sunday—a deference for the 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 processions 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
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 accumulation
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 considerable anxiety to the authorities, from the fear of their
causing or spreading disease.[46]
-----
Footnote 46:
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, crowding 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 established at St. Anna’s,
and shelters for wayfarers stricken with illness were organised along
the route, 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.
-----
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.
[Illustration: OUR HOUSE-BOAT ON THE LUNA-OYA.]
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, acanthus, 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
_moodliar_, 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, converts 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 by an
after-glow still more exquisite; and ere its brilliancy had faded 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 village, with all its
variety of boats, most fascinating to a sketcher. A hearty welcome
awaited us in a pleasant bungalow between the sea and the lake, and
close to an old fort—commenced by the Portuguese, and completed 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[47]), and two or
three in India, to compare with this one at Negombo. Sad to say, 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.
-----
Footnote 47:
‘At Home in Fiji.’ By C. F. Gordon Cumming. Published by William
Blackwood & Sons.
-----
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 network 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 _Peepul_ (as it is called in India), or
_Bo_ (which is the contraction for _Bodinwahanse_, 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 wisdom; consequently, wherever Buddhism
has reigned, even where, as throughout India, it has been superseded by
Brahmanism, this tree is held in deepest reverence.[48]
-----
Footnote 48:
For singularly practical proof of this, in business matters, see ‘In
the Himalayas and on Indian Plains,’ p. 80. By C. F. Gordon Cumming.
Published by Chatto & Windus.
-----
The third great member of clan fig is the FICUS ELASTICA, or indiarubber
tree, of which it would be difficult 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 ‘Alongshore’ 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 _comboys_. The services were hearty, the singing
good, and the great fronds of the tall palms quivered in the cool light
breeze as we looked down on the bright blue sea—a peaceful, pleasant
scene.
The old fort suggests strange visions of trading under difficulties,
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
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 himself 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
misshapen 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 charming Negombo, to
which we bade adieu with infinite regret, my companions returning to
Colombo by land, while I preferred returning 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.
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 first 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 Institution 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 confirmation, 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 the eyes, the
intensely vivid green of the young rice-crops far exceeding 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 forming an
embankment which retains the water, so that the rice may never be dry
till it is fully ripe. These embankments form the footpaths 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 antediluvian 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 white
paddy-birds which stalk after them as inseparable companions.
The rice (which has been previously well soaked) is now scattered 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. The 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 _yalla_, 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 monsoons (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 Allagalla, a grand craggy
mountain, the uniform gradient is 1 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 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 understand 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.[49]
-----
Footnote 49:
Possibly some of the many victims 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 medica_ 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.
-----
Now, doubtless owing to improved drainings, and to the wholesale
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 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 concerned, 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 Government, 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 bestowed 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 less.
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 welcome 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 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 (_Lagerstrœmia 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 Allagalla 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 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
innumerable 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 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,[50] 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.
-----
Footnote 50:
_Corypha umbraculifera._
-----
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 (sometimes 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.[51]
-----
Footnote 51:
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.
-----
The leaves attain their largest size when the tree is about twenty 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 multitudinous 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 accumulating
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 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 these great
leaves act as a mirror to reflect the light, so that the bread-fruit
tree casts no great depth of shadow (_Artocarpus incisa_).
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 _poi_ 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 stepmother 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 bread-fruit
tree—namely, the jak (_Artocarpus integrifolia_)—a large tree with less
attractive foliage, which, however, casts a deeper shadow (a valuable
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 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,[52] 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.
-----
Footnote 52:
_Carica papaya._
-----
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
papaïn, 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,[53] which, ere the leaves
appear, are covered with scarlet pea-shaped blossoms; and tall perfectly
upright cotton-trees,[54] called by the Singhalese Katu-Imbul.
-----
Footnote 53:
_Erythrina indica._
Footnote 54:
_Bombax malabaricum._
-----
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-pulun_ or simply _pulun_,
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.[55]
-----
Footnote 55:
See ‘Fire-Fountains of Hawaii.’ By C. F. Gordon Cumming. Published by
William Blackwood & Sons.
-----
Owing to the trouble of separating this cotton or _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 considerable
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 acquired 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 accommodating 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 remunerative.
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.
At the summit of the steep Kadugannawa Pass there is a monument to
Captain Dawson, R.E., who had charge of the construction of the original
road up the Pass, which, for forty years before the railway 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 indescribable. 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 reference
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[56] 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 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.
-----
Footnote 56:
‘Fifty Years in Ceylon.’ By Major Thomas Skinner. W. H. Allen & Co.
-----
Fortunately what proved to be wiser counsels prevailed, and on the
recommendation of two naval officers, 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 _viâ_ 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, climbing over
rocks, or skirting precipices. (Thinking of that journey, now so
pleasantly accomplished _in 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 unconcern with which their _tuan kilchel_, ‘little
officer,’ 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
difficulty.
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 completed that the supplies
for the troops could be conveyed thither on wheels. Rapidly as these and
other roads were surveyed and constructed, more recent engineers have
had no fault to find. It was splendid work, well and quickly done.
The men employed were—_first_, a noble force of Pioneers; _secondly_,
such of the native troops as could be spared, and who were fit for such
work; and _thirdly_, 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, 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 Department 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 does, what could be accomplished by an unassuming man, brimful of
pluck, energy, self-reliance, self-help, and quiet determination 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, discovering and opening
up the long-forgotten ruined cities, restoring the ruined canal system
of the Maritime Provinces, and finally securing 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 invariably
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 involved 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.
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 circumstances.
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.
‘All the liquid I took during the day did not exceed one imperial pint;
this _régime_ 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, considered
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 magnificent 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 see 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 bare outline
of such a life of unselfish usefulness 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
Trincomalee.
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 with 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 beautiful river
to Gampola, which was then the terminus. Now, the railway 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 comparatively
forsaken.
[Illustration:
VALLEY OF THE MAHAVELLI GANGA.
(Showing the Railway and Satinwood Bridges at Peradeniya, Allegalla
Peak, Terraced Rice Fields.—Foreground, Coffee and a Talipot Palm.)
]
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 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 undergrowth of
broad-leaved plantains, ferns, and gay caladiums, or the blue-green of
the handsome castor-oil plant,[57] 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 foreground to a
panorama of beautiful hills.
-----
Footnote 57:
_Palma Christi._
-----
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 contrasted 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 Kotmalee
valley, till we reached the foot of the Rambodda 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 fragrant
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.
I confess that to me 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 country, and
little did I 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 darkness 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, however, 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, and 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,[58] and afterwards to several other friends, so
that the pleasant weeks slipped rapidly by ere I returned to this little
nest in the coffee.
-----
Footnote 58:
Sir William Gregory.
-----
CHAPTER VII
NUWARA ELIYA
Spring foliage—Ironwood—Potato-tree—Rhododendron—The patenas—Horton
Plains—Lemon-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 beautiful Findhorn,[59] with dark peat-coloured
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.
-----
Footnote 59:
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.
-----
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,[60] 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,’[61] 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, as we did, to see beneath it a group of gaily dressed and
bejewelled Tamil women and children.
-----
Footnote 60:
_Messua ferrea._
Footnote 61:
It belongs to the family of the _Solanaceæ_.
-----
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[62] in Scotland quite as richly laden with bunches of pure
scarlet, and gleaming in the sunlight against as cloudless and blue a
sky.
-----
Footnote 62:
Mountain-ash.
-----
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 are 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.
I can never forget my first views of this Elysium when, after toiling
steadily up-hill to the end of the eleventh mile from Rambodda, 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 foreground. 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.
[Illustration: THE PLAINS OF NUWARA ELIYA.]
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 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 Eliya 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 between 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 Eliya, at a somewhat
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 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 concentrating 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 Kondapallé 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, phœnix-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
primroses. 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 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 preparation of
strawboard, for which there is an enormous demand for the manufacture of
boxes in which to pack tea for the rapidly increasing export. Another
article hitherto deemed useless is the mana-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 interpretation 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 without 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 strawberries and
other fruits, and the luxuriant fields of sweet white clover, dear to
the busy bees, it is hard to realise all the difficulties and
disappointments 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 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 consumed 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 rewarded 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, aqueducts, 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 1819, 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 officers’ 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 stone-built houses
with chimneys, whose ‘reek’ is a very characteristic 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 feet—and is happily still clothed with forest to
the very summit—forest, moreover, which is all hardwood, 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 acclimatised in nursery gardens.
Here rises the Nanu-Oya, which forms one of the affluents of the
Maha-velli-ganga,[63] 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.)
-----
Footnote 63:
The true source of the Maha-velli-ganga is on Adam’s Peak.
-----
Thanks to the unwearied care of Mr. Le Mesurier, Lake Gregory, and also
the streams which water the Horton Plains, are now abundantly 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
grown-up trout, but are dangerous to the fry.[64]
-----
Footnote 64:
Mr. Le Mesurier’s care for the fish-supply of the colony is not
confined to freshwater 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.
-----
Otters also prove such formidable foes to all freshwater fish that a
raid against them is now being made with a view to their extermination.
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 that if only
they 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 undisturbed 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, mosquito larvæ; and
seeing how surprising is the fecundity of the mosquito, 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 100
eggs would at the end of the month be found the parent of 100
mosquitos, of which 50 would be females. In the second month 50
females laying each 100 eggs, would yield 5,000 larvæ. In the third
month 2,500 females × 100 eggs = 250,000 larvæ. In the fourth
12,500,000 larvæ, and so on, until at the end of the twelve months
there would be 488,281,250,000,000,000,000 larvæ.’
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 surprising. Here,
within 7° of the equator, I believe the thermometer never exceeds 72°
Fahr. at noon in summer, and at night it sometimes 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. Sketching was hopeless, and I fully appreciated the
reasons why houses 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 invigorating and
inspiriting that every breath is an elixir, and the mere fact of
existence is a delight, renewed with every breath, of an atmosphere 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 wattle imported 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 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, maiden-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.[65]
-----
Footnote 65:
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.’
-----
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 GOD.
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 spring months,
until the end of May, each of the nest-like homes encircling 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, telling 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 _blasé_-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 better than by
quoting a few passages from my diary, first remarking that at that time
there was only one carriage in Nuwara Eliya, so that almost 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 Highlanders 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,[66] 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.
-----
Footnote 66:
Almost the whole of which has now vanished before the advance of the
planter’s axe.
-----
‘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 Adam’s Peak
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 sketchable, being rather suggestive of a
petrified ocean, as if liquid waves had been suddenly transformed to
solid rock ridges, fixed and immovable.
‘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 _chules_—
_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 A.M., 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 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 dawdling, 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 loveliness
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 1 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 exhausting 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. Consequently, 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!)
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. We 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 first
flight of the season on November 18. The flight lasted the whole day;
direction from due south-west to north. 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 1888 the migration northward in the teeth of the wind was observed at
Colombo on November 18, the great flight of white and yellow 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 their
brilliantly blue body and tail, and golden-sienna 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 Malegawatenne,
‘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 mountainous
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; the Dik-oya is the Long
River. Hak-galla is said to be a contraction of Yakkada-galla, and to
mean ‘the iron rock.’ Certainly the amount of iron in the soil of the
district is remarkable, and sensibly affects vegetation, being excellent
for tea but destructive to cinchona; but I think Hak-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 Laxapana 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 multiply 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 profusion.
Calceolarias and red and white balsams had also the interest of being
old friends, but one of my chief jungle treasures was altogether 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 beneficial in
cases of neuralgia and lumbago. Owners of white skin, however, 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
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
undergrowth 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 housefly.
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 themselves
useful by eating cockroaches, but are dreaded by the lightly draped
natives, whom they sometimes attack savagely. I am told that when
natives are 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[67] 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.
-----
Footnote 67:
_Arundinaria densifolia._
-----
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 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 are 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 great 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 Himalayas, 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 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 descending, the wise beast invariably
moved by zigzags, and thus lessened the abruptness of the incline.
CHAPTER VIII
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 solid 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[68] has a very peculiar interest,
having been riven asunder by lightning, which, strange to say, was 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 Badulla, in the
heart of the country, which in those days was so overrun by all manner
of destructive wild animals that the sportsman 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 considered 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.
-----
Footnote 68:
The monuments next to this bear the names of Ebenezer Gordon Munro,
Sir William Rough, Colonel Peddie, and Edward Septimus Hodges of
Dorchester.
-----
In these days when sportsmen have to pay ten rupees—equal to about
15_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 10_s._ 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 tusks. 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 are 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 comparatively rare. My brother Roualeyn, when in South
Africa, secured one tusk 10 feet 8 inches in length, and which weighed
173 lbs. 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 distinctly
smaller than the Indian elephant, is nevertheless provided with an extra
pair of ribs and dorsal vertebræ, 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 7-1/2 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 offered an order on any gunmaker 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 baby
elephant stands about three feet in height. They are dark-brown hairy
creatures, but 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 vertebræ 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,[69] 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.)
-----
Footnote 69:
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’ peculiarities of breathing. So with
regard to serpents, they will not kill them, but cradle them in
baskets or spathes of palm-blossom and float them down the river,
hoping that they may be drowned.
-----
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. 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 required by one
English firm (Messrs. Rodgers & Sons, of Sheffield) involves the death
of eight hundred tusk elephants! How rarely people investing in nice
ivory-handled knives think of such antecedents!
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 Hambantota. 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 dislocated,
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 Badulla, 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 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 (_pandal_) 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 discoloured.[70]
-----
Footnote 70:
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 occurred 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 when at length one man revived, he found one of his
companions dead, and the other unconscious and badly singed. With
great difficulty he contrived to bring the canoe back to Colombo with
its sad freight.
-----
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 coincidence 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 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 Government 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 efficiency, promptitude, and punctuality than when they
were 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 invariably
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 reappeared 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 employed in
building a dam across a stream. The newly felled forest was distant only
about fifty yards, and the rough stems of trees 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 _in her mouth_,
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 satisfaction 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.[71]
-----
Footnote 71:
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.
-----
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, only 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, swinging his legs and tail, or
twisting his snake-like proboscis (sensitive as the antennæ 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 deposits 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.[72] 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.
-----
Footnote 72:
I am told that the daily rations of each elephant in the Zoological
Gardens in London consists of 10 lb. of sea-biscuit, 42 lb. of Swedish
turnips, a truss and a half of hay, and a mash composed of 1 bushel of
chaff, 1 bushel of bran, and 3 lb. of rice.
-----
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 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
unaccountably 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.[73]
-----
Footnote 73:
Concerning tame elephants as a profitable speculation, it is
interesting to learn that those at the London ‘Zoo’ earn about 800_l._
a-year, besides conferring indescribable enjoyment to thousands, by
giving rides at 2_d._ 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.
-----
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 east 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 themselves
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
succulent young grass.
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
exterminated 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 contrive 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 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 £20 on each animal:
it revived in a measure when in 1882 the royalty was reduced to £10, 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.
Exported
1863 173
1864 194
1865 271
1866 203
1867 148
1868 167
1869 199
1870 38
1871 74
1872 53
1873 83
1874 77
1875 7
1876 3
1877 1
1878 1
1879 1
1880 12
1881 8
1882 25
1883 86
1884 51
And so on down to 1890, when
42 were exported.
When captured young, an elephant can be trained, like an affectionate
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 periodical
madness known as _must_, which is a form of temporary insanity 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 intermediate 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 household 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,[74] 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 true
cat. Ceylon has two distinct varieties of leopard, of which the
so-called chetah 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.
-----
Footnote 74:
_Felis jubata._
-----
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 1 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 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,[75] 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.
-----
Footnote 75:
_Moschus meminna._
-----
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 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 developing
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.
Throughout its course the river is exceedingly difficult 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.[76]
-----
Footnote 76:
‘Eight Years in Ceylon,’ Chap. VII. Longmans, Green & Co.
-----
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.
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—
Peradeniya 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 Rambodda
(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 1,680 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, surround the
lake, and are dotted all over the green hills overlooking the valley.
[Illustration:
KANDY, LOOKING TO THE MATELE HILLS.
(Shows the Temple of the Tooth, Buddhist Library, Government House,
&c.)
]
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
oppressive; 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.
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 surrounded 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 compulsory
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 1815
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 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
exception 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 monasteries and
colleges; an octagonal building, in which are stored treasures of
Oriental literature; the palace of the old kings, now the residence 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 completes 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. 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 surrounding 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 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 content 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 invariably
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 lamps, and
glowing with yellow marigolds—sacred on account of their colour.
All through this month of May I find in my journal perpetually 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 impossible.
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, of which you
never see two alike, though in shape all are like very large rather flat
pincushions, and surmounted with an eccentric ornament 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
_kondé_ or knot. An enormous ring worn on the third or fourth finger,
completes a costume whose gaudiness is effectually 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
worth seeing. 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 _kondé_ 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 _kondé_, 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 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 Senawiratna 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.[77]
-----
Footnote 77:
I 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 1st Battalion of Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders playing coronachs. Then followed eighty-three Buddhist
priests of both the Amarapura 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.
-----
Other titles of the 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 Menikê, and Etani
and Lamahami mark the feminine of other grades.
I was present one evening at a grand reception of Kandyan ladies at the
Pavilion (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 _comboy_—_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 Menikê, _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
community 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. Dickson[78] 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.
-----
Footnote 78:
Now Sir John F. Dickson.
-----
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 recurring 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 nothing of days and days of unpaid
work,[79] all for the honour and glory of welcoming a stranger.
-----
Footnote 79:
Where land is held on the condition of performing all such services
when required.
-----
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.
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 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 Cumming 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. Moreover, 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 on
n’a pas ce que l’on aime, il faut aimer ce que l’on a!_’); but certainly
they lose no chance of securing a good drink 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 direction 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 invitation
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 passing
thence into the throat, and causing great suffering and sometimes death.
The familiar 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 Matelé, 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 experience, 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).
[Illustration: AVENUE OF INDIA-RUBBER TREES, PERADENIYA.]]
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 my arms, 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 Thunbergia 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 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 commerce,
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 1/38th 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 stiffness of
a botanical garden; nursery grounds are 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 attractive.
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-kittul_, ‘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 unpleasant tree to crush against in a thick jungle.[80]
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.
-----
Footnote 80:
This used to be called the _Caryota horrida_, but I believe modern
botanists class it as a thorny species of areca palm.
-----
The Seychelles contribute a fine specimen of their own particular palm,
the _coco-de-mer_, 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
peninsula of rich alluvial soil, encircled on three sides by the
Mahavelli-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,[81] 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.
-----
Footnote 81:
_Mimosa sensitiva._
-----
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 forebodings 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 described as
_serrement du cœur_—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.
[Illustration: GIGANTIC BAMBOOS, PERADENIYA.]
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 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.[82] 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.
-----
Footnote 82:
Hence one form of the diabolic Eastern methods of execution by
impaling. The victim was firmly secured in a sitting posture over a
vigorous young bamboo, and was there left to perish by its growth.
-----
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.[83]
-----
Footnote 83:
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 agricultural, in ‘In the Himalayas,’ pp. 505-507.
Published by Chatto & Windus.
-----
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 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 unpleasant.
Very different is the fascinating flying squirrel, which is found
chiefly in this neighbourhood, from Rambodda to Matelé, 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. When 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 ‘praying mantis,’ which uplifts its
arms so reverently, as if in prayer, is a very ferocious cannibal, and
those arms really act as swords 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 hanging 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,[84] 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 humiliating 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.
-----
Footnote 84:
Of the family _Eumenidæ_.
-----
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 humiliation 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, leopards, 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[85] which devour woodlice and cockroaches.
-----
Footnote 85:
Cermatia.
-----
Another most innocent creature, which to a new-comer is somewhat
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
something 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 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 mahogany. 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 provide himself
with a goodly supply of living candles, on which he doubtless breakfasts
when he awakes.
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,[86] 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 _dewale_ or house of gods in the outer
enclosure, where there is also a hall for the _kapuas_ or devil-dancers—
a very singular compromise between creeds which theoretically are so
antagonistic.
-----
Footnote 86:
See ‘Wanderings in China,’ vol. ii. p. 38. By C. F. Gordon Cumming.
William Blackwood & Sons.
-----
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 malignant 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
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![87] 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 malignant spells.
-----
Footnote 87:
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.
-----
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 _bali_ to be observed, which include
incantations over a clay image representing the planet under which the
patient was born.
The 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 important 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, to
scare away evil spirits. At harvest, too, the priest must choose a lucky
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 Mudaliyars:—
‘For threshing, Thursdays are considered the best days to commence,
and certain charms and ceremonies are performed to keep off _putams_,
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
stealing 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 _madu_, as usual, go by the name _varikkalan_,
the meaning of which is ‘productive-legged’; the _marakkal_, or the
measure, is termed ‘accountant’; the baskets are called _peruvayan_,
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 _poli_.
Bring the _marakkal_ ” Multiply the ‘accountant.’
Fill the basket ” Multiply the
‘broad-mouth.’
Bring some water ” Multiply some flood.
Go home for rice is rendered, Multiply home for white.
Call him to take this } ” { Multiply him to multiply
and deliver it at home } { this and to multiply at
home.
&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 are
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[88] is brought in, to be
touched by the patient and then sacrificed, or perhaps merely dedicated
to the demon, and given to his priest.
-----
Footnote 88:
For various instances of the identical sacrifice in Scotland in the
present half-century, see ‘In the Hebrides,’ by C. F. Gordon Cumming,
pp. 251, 252. Chatto & Windus.
-----
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 accompaniment 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.
A very elaborate festival in honour of evil spirits is sometimes held in
a district which has been ravaged by cholera or other infectious
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, representing 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 symbolise
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 sometimes 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 Patiné 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.
Especially 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 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 which 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.[89]
-----
Footnote 89:
See p. 61, note.
-----
(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 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 characteristic to the casual
observer is that of always wearing the yellow robe so as to leave one
shoulder bare.[90] 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.
-----
Footnote 90:
See p. 59.
-----
(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
conspicuously 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. 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, &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 Perahara, 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 comparatively 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 shrine by 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 reverence
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 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 embossed 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, is _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 realised 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.
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.
Gogerly 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 (_i.e._, 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
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.
[Illustration]
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 dagobas on either 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 daïs in the middle
of the temple, and, worst of all, produced my opera-glasses (the
never-failing companions of all 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 spectacles, and demanded
a sight of my work. He rubbed his nose over it in vain. Luckily I had
not there drawn the actual tooth; 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 interpreter) concerning 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 promising to
show them drawings of several of these, which I accordingly 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
protected 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 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 enclosed 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 one of them,
and the down-stairs door 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[91] 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.
-----
Footnote 91:
Buddha ought surely to be on the best of terms with Indra; for it is
recorded in the Jātaka, 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.
-----
Again, in Central India, he witnessed a great night festival, when 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 overshadowed 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 elephants 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 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 resplendent 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 captives 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 witnessed 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 _æsala_, but from the imperfection of native astronomy this date may
vary exceedingly.
Probably the earliest record by an eyewitness which we have of this
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 opportunities of
observing all native customs and ceremonies. He speaks of it as relating
solely to ‘the gods that govern the earth,’ ‘the Buddou’ 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 in a row, holding 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 representing 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
conqueror 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 manner 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 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 1817, by the Dessawe of Wellasse, 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 _with nine wicks_ (which is put at the
foot of the tree), and of _nine 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,
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 temple.
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 procession
proceeded to the Delada Maligawa, the Temple of the Tooth, to the gate
of which the Buddhist priests bring forth the shrine purporting 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 sword, 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 was 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-velli river
near Peradeniya.
[Illustration:
THE MAHA-VELLI-GANGA, FROM THE SATINWOOD BRIDGE.
(Bamboo Foliage.)
]
There they found a richly decorated boat, in which embarked the four
priests bearing the four swords of the goddesses, attended by 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.[92]
-----
Footnote 92:
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.
-----
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 subsequently
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 arrows of the
gods, were brought forth for a final procession; and thus, on the
morning of the thirty-first day, this prolonged and noisy festival was
brought to a close.
(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 Perahara,’
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 returning 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, forming a brilliant foreground to
the richly wooded hills which embosom the city.
To students of world-wide superstitions,[93] 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 elephant bearing a
relic being escorted by one on either side. Then 3 times 3 comes in with
the lamp having 9 wicks, and the offering of 9 betel-leaves and 9 kinds
of flowers.
-----
Footnote 93:
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 Newbattle, 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 offences 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.
-----
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 represent 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 _Iru_, the Sun, and }
_dawasa_, a day } = Sunday,
_Handuda_, ” _Chanduya_, the Moon, = Monday.
_Angaharuwada_, ” _Angaharuwa_, Mars, = Tuesday.
_Badadada_, ” _Buda_, Mercury, = Wednesday.
_Brahaspatinda_, ” _Brahaspati_, Jupiter, = Thursday.
_Sicurada_, ” _Sikura_, Venus, = Friday.
_Senasarada_, ” _Senasura_, Saturn, = Saturday.[94]
-----
Footnote 94:
I am indebted for the above to G. W. Mercer, Esq., of Glen Tulchan,
long resident 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. Thenceforward 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 of faith 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 converted on
beholding the sacred Tooth. They escorted it with all reverence to the
Imperial Court, where the wrathful Emperor commanded 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 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 adoration 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 received 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 Pollonarua, Hastiselapura, Kataragama,
Delgamoa, Kotmalie, Beligala, Dambadeniya, 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 contention and
carried it off to Southern India. Thither in 1319 the King of Ceylon,
Prakrama Bahu III., went in person to negotiate its surrender, 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 permission to ransom it
at whatever price might be named—offering a very large sum of money in
addition to great political advantages.
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 Archbishop, Don
Caspar, 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
which stood ready, and the charcoal, with this minute atom of ash, was
cast into the river in presence of all the multitude.
But true believers declare that the Holy Tooth was miraculously
re-formed in the heart of a lotus blossom, and I suppose they consider
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 meantime 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 that he was to marry a
princess of Ceylon). It so happened that the King of Cotta had no
daughter, but the shipload of rich gifts was irresistible, and as he had
brought up in the palace 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 afterwards offered an
immense sum of money and other costly gifts (including the annual gift
of a ship laden with rice), if only this inestimable 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 negotiations 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.
Apollonia_ (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 in magnificently decorated
barges to receive it with due honour, and bring it up the river in state
to his royal capital of Rangoon, he himself 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 touching the raft
which bore the 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 accompanied
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 keeping 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, resolved 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 likewise by the
offer of the tooth, and that as a mark of consideration for the King of
Kandy he would send back by his ambassadors a shipload 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 subjects who
had been held captive in Pegu, and from the lips of one of these De
Couto wrote his narrative.[95] The vessel for the King of Kandy had her
cables maliciously cut, and was wrecked in Colombo harbour.
-----
Footnote 95:
Translated from the Portuguese by Sir James Emerson Tennant.
-----
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
Shwé-Zeegoong Pagoda, one of the most celebrated temples in Burmah.[96]
-----
Footnote 96:
Mission to the Court of Ava.
-----
The Burmese, however, do not seem to have been satisfied with these
duplicate teeth, for when in 1815 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 1818 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 sentries till 1847,
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.[97] 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.
-----
Footnote 97:
‘Wanderings in China,’ pp. 261-267. By C. F. Gordon Cumming. William
Blackwood & Sons.
-----
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 circumference! A third tooth was
that of a king who had turned the 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_ Buddha. He
describes a tooth which he saw at the temple called Teu-shwai-sï, which
was two inches and a half thick and ten by thirteen in width![98]—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
O-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!
-----
Footnote 98:
‘Chinese Buddhism,’ p. 250.
-----
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’êng-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 ‘Archæological 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 England, 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 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 consecrated, 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[99] 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 afterwards to be
sprinkled on the sick or given them to be drunk as a medicine.’
-----
Footnote 99:
‘Church of our Fathers.’
-----
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 à Becket (scraped up with the dust off the
pavement), a relic which, being carried round the neck of ‘y^e
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 annually
by hundreds of our countrymen in 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 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 pretended
in olden days to work 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 Bannockburn,
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 Templars 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 on the following day a great
procession should be formed, to conduct 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 Città 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
certain), this practice was borrowed by the Christians from the
followers 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 reliquary, 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 poor naked corpse,
which the civic authorities were unable to defend.[100]
-----
Footnote 100:
This scandalous scene, which occurred at Torre del Greco in August
1872, was thus reported by the _Daily News_ :—
‘Last Monday, Torre del Greco 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 immense 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 café,
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 crucifix on
the altar was torn down, and the dead body of the wonder-working
Bishop put in its place. The deceased had been arrayed 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 effectually 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 that 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.’
-----
In France thousands annually wend their way to the Puy de Dôme, 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, 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 Nôtre Dâme 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 connivance 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 £12,000.’
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.
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 Trèves
(or, as we must now call it, Trier) in the autumn of 1891. 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
Emperor 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 Trèves, 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 1512, 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. commanded 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, Würzburg, Bamburg, and Augsburg, where it
remained till 1810, when it was restored to Trèves, 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
Trèves 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 computed 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 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 mètres
long was then lifted out and opened, and a long document and a smaller
box covered with leather were taken out; within the 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 Trèves 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 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 incurable, 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 drunkenness, and the
publicans who had laid in incredible stores of beer and wine in
expectation of much conviviality, were grievously disappointed 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 offerings 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 Trèves 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 was
likewise subjected to microscopic investigation, and pronounced by the
Pope to have been a genuine garment worn by our Lord, but in earlier
years than that of Trèves; 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 Hampstead 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.
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-Christian city of
Anuradhapura, in the heart of the North-Central Province, and of the
more recent, but almost equally ruined, city of Pollanaruwa, 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 Ballacaduwa 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 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 concealment 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 for an
interesting ruined Hindoo temple (Gedigé) 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 _en route_ to Dambulla
(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 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 conspicuous 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 mountain 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 gracefully 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 Ellora, with the inevitable result of a feeling 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 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 Patiné (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 sacrilegiously 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 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 atonement for the blood he had shed in war.
With chivalrous honour he erected a monument to Elala, and enacted that
thenceforth, as processions 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 _viâ_
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,
in Dasent’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 of Ireland. Here it is the king
who comes from the sea and the 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.’[101]
-----
Footnote 101:
‘My Circular Notes,’ vol. ii. p. 155. By J. F. Campbell. Macmillan.
-----
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 witchcraft;[102] 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.
-----
Footnote 102:
‘In the Hebrides,’ pp. 197, 297. By C. F. Gordon Cumming. Published by
Chatto & Windus.
-----
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 ceaseless
splash into a small tank on the rock pavement.
The third cave, though only about half the size of the last, contains
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 considerable
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 relinquished 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 many other
places, and caused seventy-two statues of Buddha[103] 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.’
-----
Footnote 103:
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 Pollonarua there is a reference to his having
simply re-gilded the images.
-----
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 grateful shade,
and there is a small slope of short sun-scorched grass.
The view from the summit is very fine, overlooking a vast 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 exceedingly
difficult 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,
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 plastered 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
eventually 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 15 feet deep, and the
other 15 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.[104]
-----
Footnote 104:
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 their eyes put out._
-----
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 constructed
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 livelong 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.
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.
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 Regiment, who
attacked them first at Matale and afterwards at Kurunegalla, in each
case routing them effectually. A few necessary executions 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 inhabitants 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 mountain 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 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 for the irrigation 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 entombment
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 according 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 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 embankment 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.[105]
-----
Footnote 105:
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 embankment 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
containing 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.
-----
Due west from Padivil, on the coast of Manaar, are the stupendous ruins
of the Giant’s Tank, which (like Padivil) was designed on a magnificent
scale for the irrigation of that vast district known 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 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 restored 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[106] lands belonging to Buddhist and Hindoo temples, where 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.
-----
Footnote 106:
In Mr. Mitford’s report for Sir Hercules Robinson, on the existing
state of serfdom on temple lands in 1868, he says:—
‘The Order in Council by which in 1832 compulsory labour was abolished
in Crown villages, _by excepting royal temple and private villages
from 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 CHAINS OF THIS GALLING TYRANNY ON
ONE-THIRD OF THE POPULATION.
‘Under this system men are bought and sold with the land, agriculture
and 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, carrying 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.
‘_I maintain that we have no right to hold any British subject in a
position compelling him to perform idolatrous ceremonies, with the
alternative of ruin.... I have often felt a blush of shame when
obliged to decide cases against temple serfs, in violation of the
rights of humanity and the first principles of justice._’
-----
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 particular
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 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 cultivation 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 (_Panicum miliacæum_)
and Kurukkan (_Eleusine indica_). 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-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, pigs, 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 sportsmen 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 the North
Central Province in 1871 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
characteristic 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
unbridged. It was sixteen years since any Governor had made his way
thither.
To secure a larger share of attention and care, Sir William separated
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 particular 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 William 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 process 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-cultivated and luxuriant crops, and of
knowing that the people had home-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_d._ per bushel, whereas in Colombo, where the
cost of freight has to be added, its price ranges from 1_s._ 8_d._ to
2_s._ per bushel. But the most surprising and delightful change was that
of the people themselves. All the hopelessness had vanished, the skinny
half-starved children were fat and healthy, the horrible parangi had
almost disappeared, and the population was increased by the return of
many, anxious to share the blessings of abundant cheap food and
comparatively good water.
But all these village tanks were dependent for their supply on the
rains, consequently in times of prolonged drought they must inevitably
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 Yódi 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 Anuradhapura, 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 necessary. 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 expenditure 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 English proverb, ‘It’s dogged as
does it’; and so through all the storm of criticism he carried the work
steadily on, having good proof of how certainly 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. Ievers, 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 English Portland cement, and various 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 collecting
materials for future masonry work. No water could be obtained 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 impression 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 elephants 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 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 building, 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 daïs 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 occasion 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 conspicuous
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 the Kandyan chiefs and the
more statuesque village head-men, mingling 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 beautiful 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 Singhalese 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 moonlight 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, instead of the expensive iron sluices
which were used at first. Thus in the year 1890 alone, 300 tanks were
restored, and 500 sluices were 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 been
constructed, and 326 irrigation channels have been constructed 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 were 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 expenditure,
the great tank had failed to keep up the water-supply. To these came an
answer from one[107] 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.
-----
Footnote 107:
The Editor of the ‘Ceylon Observer.’
-----
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 chief
river in the whole of this great district, had, for the second time in
the memory of the living, 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 rain-storm 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 feeding 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. Ievers’ 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.[108] 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.’
-----
Footnote 108:
70,000 persons.
-----
Even as I write, news reaches me of the heavy rainfall at Anuradhapura
in May 1891—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 magnificent 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 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 been 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[109] to insist on the multiplication of
cocoa and palmyra palms, which now form so important a part of the
national diet.
-----
Footnote 109:
See Chapter xx.
-----
The bed of the great lake and the Giant 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 approached 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 city 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,[110] and which lies at a distance of about thirty-five
miles, as the crow flies. This, by the way, is a contested derivation,
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 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.
-----
Footnote 110:
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 Mahāwansa that Anuradhapura was so called on
account of its having been the settlement of Anurādho, and also
because it was founded under the constellation of Anurādho.
The still more ancient chronicles of the Dīpavamsa 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.
-----
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 attempting
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[111] to that chivalrous duel between Dutugemunu
and Etāla, Prince of Mysore, when the latter was slain, and the Malabars
defeated before the walls of Anuradhapura.
-----
Footnote 111:
P. 243.
-----
All through the surrounding jungle are pillars and ruins, suggestive 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 the rocks, and this Aukana
Vihare must have been a place of great fame.
Here in utter solitude 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 1 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
HIS PRESENCE.
CHAPTER XII
ANURADHAPURA
Factory of cement pipes—Tiripane—Galkulum—Ruanweli Dagoba—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 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 Government 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 remaining 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 effectually 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.
Two characteristics are specially striking: the incalculable multitude
of tall monoliths—not rude stone monuments, but accurately 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, surrounded 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. 161, 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.
[Illustration:
THE RUANWELI DAGOBA, ANURADHAPURA, B.C. 300.
(To contain right collar-bone of Buddha. To the right is the
Government Agent’s House.)
]
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 elephants must have been more
abundant in Ceylon in those days than in the present century! There are
also several large stone statues 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 Elāla, 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 otherwise 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 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 preparing 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. 1214 by
Maagha, a ruthless treasure-seeker, who, in his determination to reach
the relic-chamber, tore down all the upper part of the structure, 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 multitude of
handsome stone pillars with elaborately sculptured square capitals—some
upright, some leaning, others fallen and half overgrown 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 connected 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 (B.C. 89)
commemorated the expulsion of the Malabar invaders and his own recovery
of the throne.
[Illustration:
THE THUPARAMA DAGOBA, ANURADHAPURA, B.C. 300.
(To the left lies the Delada Maligawa, where the Sacred Tooth rested
on its arrival from India, A.D. 400.)
]
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 who were employed on this
work of excavation, and on the restoration of the summit tower, have
left rude steps along the side of the brickwork by which it is now
possible to ascend to a height of 231 feet above the platform—_i.e._,
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 dagoba 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
_tee_ or spire, apparently representing seven honorific umbrellas, piled
in the manner still realistically done in Burmah; 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.D. 311.
Fa-Hian, the Chinese traveller who visited Ceylon about A.D. 413, 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 rest-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 comprehensive 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 many effective
pictures on paper, which at first sight seemed absolutely 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
Dewananpia-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 orthodox 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 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 acknowledgment 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 productions of a highly civilised race, whose object was
equally the invocation of the dead. Whatever meaning may have once
attached 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[112] built on the same pattern—namely, a circular building on
a square platform.
-----
Footnote 112:
The 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.
-----
(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
poor, very large for the wealthy, and cyclopean for emperors. 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.[113]
-----
Footnote 113:
These I have described fully in ‘Wanderings in China,’ vol. ii. pp.
172, 175, 180, 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.
-----
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 mortice 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 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; 160 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,[114] there are seven within the limits
of Anuradhapura itself, without reference to those at Mehintale and
elsewhere in the neighbourhood. These seven are—
-----
Footnote 114:
Various derivations are given: _datu_, ‘a relic,’ and _gabbhan_, ‘a
shrine’; or, _deha_, ‘the body,’ and _gopa_, ‘that which preserves.’
-----
Supposed Present Diameter Date
original height. at base. begun.
height.
Thuparama — 62½ 59 B.C. 307
Mirisawetiya — 82½ 164 B.C. 164
Ruanweli 270 189 379 B.C. 161
Abayagiria 405 231 325 B.C. 89
Jetawanarama 316 249 360 A.D. 302
Lankarama — 32½ 44 Unknown.
Seta 20 Too ruinous to ascertain. B.C. 119
Chaitiya
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 condition, 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 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 Ruanweli dagoba, one of the gods
created the requisite quantity of bricks at a place sixteen 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 preparation of lime made from burned
oyster-shells, mixed with the water of cocoa-nuts and the glutinous
juice of the fruit called paragaha.[115]
-----
Footnote 115:
_Dillena dentata._
-----
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 Anuradhapura. 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 yesterday—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 labyrinth of ruinous brickwork and
sculptured stones, so bewildering till one begins to get something like
a clue to its main features.
In point 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
supplement 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 carving, as
perfect to-day as when, two thousand years ago, they were trodden by the
unsandalled feet of reverent worshippers or busy merchants. 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 (commonly 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, embracing 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 stonework; 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 contemplation of the lonely
forest—a mighty image of dark stone brought from afar, at some remote
time when worshippers were 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 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. Whatever 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 foundation 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 possibly allow his inferior to sit
higher than himself) the poor old monks of highest rank had to occupy
the uppermost rooms, just under the roof with its glittering brazen
tiles—rather warm quarters on a hot summer’s day!
A most interesting account of this palace, and its various apartments,
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, 3-1/2 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 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 outriggers 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 sculptured
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
constituted 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. Moon Street consisted
of eleven thousand houses, many of which were large beautiful mansions
two storeys high. There were lesser streets without 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 innumerable, 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—_i.e._ 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 irrigated all the
land were left to go to utter ruin; and for 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 Oriental court.[116] 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 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.
-----
Footnote 116:
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 distinguished 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—_i.e._, 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, by name 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.
-----
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 Anuradhapura 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.
At length, A.D. 1153, a mighty king arose, by name Prakrama Bahu, who
with a strong hand delivered his country, and, driving out the invaders,
established 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 the capital for the time
being. The oldest of these was Tamana-nuwara, which was the capital of
Wijayo, the conqueror, B.C. 543. 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,[117] and one year when King Kaloona removed
the capital to Dondra or Dewa-nuwara, the city of the gods, and likewise
committed suicide, Anuradhapura reigned supreme for 1,353 years, when it
was abandoned in favour of Pollonarua: 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.
-----
Footnote 117:
P. 246.
-----
Then came the reign of the great King Prakrama, when the glory of
Pollonarua 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 Pollonarua 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 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.
[Illustration:
PILGRIMS’ CAMP AND THE THREE STONE BULLS.
(Near the Ruins of the Brazen Temple.)
]
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.[118] We find it again in
the Christian Churches of Abyssinia and in the Buddhist temples of
Japan; and here in Ceylon every important _dewali_ (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 its staves, and carried in sunwise
circuit round the temple amid great rejoicing.
-----
Footnote 118:
I have described many such arkite ceremonies in ‘In the Himalayas,’
pp. 361-371, 436. Published by Chatto & Windus.
-----
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 Daghè, at Pollonarua, lies a stone precisely similar to the
Clach Brach at St. Oran’s Chapel in Iona, 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 1 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 ‘All hail!’ But in making their
circle they kept their left side towards 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 exceeding
interest to us all, was the Peepul or sacred Bo-tree (as irreverent
Britons, in their love for abbreviation, 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).
What 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[119] 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.
-----
Footnote 119:
‘Ceylon,’ vol. ii. pp. 617, 632.
-----
One of the passages quoted from the Mahawanso, written about 470 A.D.,
concludes: ‘Thus this monarch of the forest, _endowed with miraculous
powers_, has stood for ages in the delightful Maha-mego gardens in
Lanka, _promoting the spiritual welfare of its inhabitants 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.
[Illustration:
THE SACRED BO-TREE.
(Rising through the Upper Terrace.)
]
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 leaves of the aspen. This,
say the 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 World, say,
forty days.[120] The mighty Indian King Dharm-Asoka—_i.e._, 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 themselves converts to the
new creed, and desired to take the vows of devotion thereto.
-----
Footnote 120:
The original tree at Buddha-Gaya has long since disappeared, but as
with kings, so with sacred trees, ‘_Le roi est mort, 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, however, 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 remained. 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.
-----
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 a golden pencil, and therewith drew a
line 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 devoted 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 Brahma 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.[121]
-----
Footnote 121:
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 next will, it is said, confer similar honour on
the ironwood tree with the scarlet tips of young foliage.
-----
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 has any connection with the disaster which
befell the tree on October 4, 1887. After a prolonged drought, which
continued for eight months, the tom-tom was beaten to invite 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 by 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
‘Great 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 Buddhist high
priest, and to a terrific accompaniment 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 preternaturally
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 pyramidal 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
practised in so many lands, from Ireland and Scotland to the Himalayas.
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.[122]
-----
Footnote 122:
See Chapter v., p. 91.
-----
Yet even here you may sometimes see ashes of burnt camphor, and bits of
wax 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 incorporates and 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 Gautama 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 innumerable 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 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.[123]
-----
Footnote 123:
Some of which I have described in ‘In the Himalayas,’ pp. 249, 250.
Published by Chatto & Windus.
-----
[Illustration: BUDDHA GUARDED BY THE COBRA, ROCK TEMPLE, ELLA PASS.]
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. This she agreed to draw, provided 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 pambu_, ‘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 Nágas 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—_Polon_ and _ná_, the polonga and
naga—in order to propitiate both.
Some years ago Mr. Layard opened a dagoba near Colombo which was
supposed to have been built to commemorate the conversion of the Nága
king of Kelany to the faith of Buddha. The treasure-chamber contained
some fragments of bone wrapped in thin gold-leaf, 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 cloth.
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 are 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 this 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 heaped together, and having with her own hands
set fire to this costly funeral pyre, thereon sought death.
Now the desolate ruins are forsaken alike by priests and worshippers. 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 pasture beneath the
shadow of the mighty rock-temple of our own ancestors at Stonehenge.
CHAPTER XIII
ANURADHAPURA AND MIHINTALE
Isurumuniya—Yoga-stones—Proverbs—Water-lilies—Beautiful jungle shrubs—
The Kuttam Pokuna—The oldest tanks—Rainfall—The modern town—
Mihintale—Mahindo—The great mountain-stair—Dagobas—Naga Pokuna—
Mahindo’s bed—Rock cells—Inscriptions.
Amid 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 hundred
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 grotesque 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 ‘Eiswara’ and
‘Muniya,’ _i.e._, ascetic.
The worship of Eiswara,[124] 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 probable that, in some of their many
invasions, a community of Sivites may have settled in the neighbourhood
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
janitors, canopied by a seven-headed cobra.
-----
Footnote 124:
See Chapter xix.
-----
Within the Rock Temple sits a small image of Buddha, hewn from the solid
rock, and flanked by two very ancient wooden figures, 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 a _pansala_, or dwelling house for the priests; but
the chief-priest has a _galgé_, or cell to himself—a most uninviting
little room, cut out of the solid rock. These 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 certain
‘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
_habsidum_, or ‘the retention of breath,’ as a similar method of
attaining sanctity! Verily, ‘men have sought out many inventions’!
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 B.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
Chiefs who under their grey stone
So long have slept, that fickle Fame
Hath blotted from her rolls their name.
With regard to the king’s sarcophagus, however, there is a tradition
that this was not his coffin, but his medicine-bath, in which he lay to
counteract the poison of a serpent’s bite. It is to be hoped the bath
was ready beforehand!
Recent excavations have brought to light many things intensely
interesting to archæologists, 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 Goths 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
_chenaëd_ (_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 ‘_Parmi les aveugles les
borgnes sont rois_,’ we find ‘In the tank where there is no loolā,
kanapaddi is the pundit’ (the latter being an insignificant fish as
compared with the loolā).
For ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’ we have ‘Why awaken sleeping cheetas?’
_i.e._, leopards. For ‘_Chat échaudé craint l’eau froide_,’ the Eastern
equivalent shows that the man who was beaten with a firebrand shrinks
from the glimmer of the firefly.
In place 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 by the
wisdom which prefers ‘a snipe to-day to an elephant on the morrow,’ and
esteems crow’s flesh which is near above peacock’s flesh which is far
off.
To ‘run with the hare and hunt with the hounds’ is described by
‘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 is said,
that when the waters have risen above his head it matters little 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 city 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. But
certainly there is no doubt as to the advantages for the inhabitants,
who from a mere handful of poor, sickly, half-starved villagers, now
number about three thousand healthy well-fed people, chiefly 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
realise 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 _manel_ (the true lotus)[125] 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.
-----
Footnote 125:
_Nelumbium speciosum._
-----
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
temple (the lotus being especially sacred to Buddha), that it escapes
being pulled up wholesale.
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. But 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. The 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. Its 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 difficult 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 favoured bush. I am told that this
lovely plant rejoices in the name of _Memecylon tinctorium_, 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 quivering
air. And hot it certainly was beneath the noonday sun, when 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.[126]
-----
Footnote 126:
May I be forgiven for referring to one small medical detail, attention
to which has, I know, proved my own safeguard in many years of travel.
The commonest of all forms of illness in tropical countries is
diarrhœa; 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 safeguard—quite as
essential as quinine.
-----
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 1886 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 doses 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 influences 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
the Kekuna[127] is used with other drugs in preparing a vapour-bath in
cases of cobra-bite. It is also used as a fumigation to drive away
serpents from houses. In cases of bite by the polonga, the poison is
expelled by stroking the wound hundreds of times with a bundle of the
leaves of the Madatiya.[128] These leaves and the bark also reduce
sprains. The flour obtained from the seeds of the Madu[129] is useful in
rheumatic affections and polonga bites. The resin of the Bú-hora[130] is
applied in cobra-bites, and the oil which oozes from the bark is applied
to cattle afflicted with murrain. The leaves of the Kurinnan[131] are
used in cases of dysentery and snake-bite, and are eaten as a vegetable
by nursing mothers to increase their supply of milk.
-----
Footnote 127:
_Canarium Zeylanicum._
Footnote 128:
_Adenanthera pavonina._
Footnote 129:
_Cycas circinalis._
Footnote 130:
_Dipterocarpus hispidus._
Footnote 131:
_Gymnema lactiferum._
-----
The tuberous roots of the gorgeous Niyangala lily—the _Gloriosa
superba_—are used in snake-bite, and also in difficult cases of
childbirth. The Nidi-kumba[132] 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 Attana (_Datura fastuosa_) 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.
-----
Footnote 132:
_Mimosa pudica._
-----
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 pharmacopœia is apparently free from such horrible decoctions
of animals as figured so largely in the _materia medica_ of our own
ancestors,[133] some curious recipes for the preparation of charms are
quite in the style of our best witch’s cauldrons. Here, for instance, is
one for the preparation of a deadly poison known as the cobra-tel, which
was obtained by Mr. Morris in 1840, on the occasion of a trial for
murder by means of this poison.
-----
Footnote 133:
I have quoted many examples of extraordinary ‘Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms’
in a paper on ‘Strange Medicines’ in ‘The Nineteenth Century’ for June
1887.
-----
First of all, a cock must be sacrificed to the yakkos or demons. Then
live venomous snakes—the hooded cobra, the cara wella, and the tic
polonga—must be taken, and a sharp cut made on the head of each. They
are then suspended alive over a chattie, that their poison may drip into
it. To this is added arsenic and other drugs, together with the froth
from the lips of three wretched kabragoyas (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 a kabragoya with as much relish as we
would eat 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 barbarous mode of preparing
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 _Narri-comboo_ or jackal’s
horn—a small horny cone, about half an inch long, which occasionally
grows on the head of a jackal, and is hidden by a tuft of hair. Both
Singhalese and Tamils believe that this horny knob is a talisman, 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 are 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 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 Pokuna, or twin bathing-places—
two beautifully constructed tanks, lined with great stones laid in
terraces, and flights of steps, with handsome balustrade descending from
every side to where water once was. The twins are only separated by a
narrow grassy path. The largest is 132 feet long by 51 feet wide, and
the depth is about 30 feet. I thought 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
archæological 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 companions. 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 Panduwaasa. (I may
mention that _kulam_ and _wewa_ both 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.
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
Yoda Ela, brings the blessed water from the great reservoir at Kala-wewa
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 Anuradhapura
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, courthouse, 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, ‘What! only you two?’ And then one began to
waver, and his courage failed him.
[Illustration: THE LOWER FLIGHT OF THE 1,840 ROCK STEPS AT MIHINTALE.]]
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 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.
When, 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 illuminated, 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.
Leaving Anuradhapura, we rode eight miles eastward to Mihintale, 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.
Consequently, 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 summit of this mountain
which now bears his name. It so happened that King Dewenipiatissa was
hunting the great sambur deer, when a _devo_, or good spirit, assuming
the form of a deer, enticed him onward 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 became 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 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 arms, 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 1
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 way from the sacred rock to
Anuradhapura, that pilgrims might walk thence with unsoiled feet!
Happily there was no difficulty in obtaining water near the summit
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 pool, where small white
lilies float so peacefully. It impressed itself on my memory as a very
suggestive picture.
[Illustration:
FIVE-HEADED NAGA.
(At the Bathing-place, Mihintale.)
]
I found a good point for a comprehensive picture from the Maha-Seya
dagoba, overlooking two great dagobas built on huge rounded shoulders of
rock, and surrounded by tall fruit-bearing cocoa-palms, whose presence
at this height, and so far inland, is very unusual; and far beyond all
extended the vast panorama of the great plain. 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 pinnacle—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 were 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,
pineapples, oranges, and mangoes—are so deliciously cool when first
gathered, even under a scorching sun; but within a very few 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 Mihintale the sixteen precious
relics which were to add sanctity to the 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 perchés_ left by old glaciers; but I
believe there is no trace in Ceylon of any glacial action. Campbell 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 _débris_ 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 harmonious 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 curious _galge_, or rock-cut
chamber, where ascetics of old must have lived in much discomfort. 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 Gal Sannaso looking up a flight of steps
through the jungle to two great upright oblong stone slabs, whereon are
sculptured inscriptions in the ancient Pali, granting lands to the
temple. All around are the usual lot of tall monolithic 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 care 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 otherwise
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; a new water-strainer is also
supplied every month. 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—GEMS
To Ratnapura—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 _viâ_
Trincomalee to Jaffna, in the extreme north of the isle.
We accordingly started from Colombo in the beginning of 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 Wa Kalou, ‘the fern of God,’ 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).[134] 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 are 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.
-----
Footnote 134:
See Chapter xxv.
-----
(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 benefit of future
sketchers, I may mention that they are seen to great advantage from the
57-1/4 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 uncertainty. 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 little 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 (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 invariably 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 _ambulam_ 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 described the
festival as observed at Kandy,[135] 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.
-----
Footnote 135:
See Chapter x.
-----
At Ratnapura the ceremony was very weird. First there was a rather
pretty dance by a company of women. These were quickly succeeded by 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 flame and smoke. The whole
scene was truly demoniacal.
After the dance we adjourned to the temple, which is a Dewale or Saami
house (_i.e._, a house of Hindoo gods), with a small Buddhist Vihara
alongside.
I think that no priest of either religion was present, only temple
headmen, of whom our host, Eckneligoda, was chief. First from the
Buddhist temple 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 are 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.
The drive home 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
areka 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 brilliant 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 ‘illan,’ 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
(Mahommedans), to whom most of the gem-pits belong, and who sit perched
on raised seats overlooking the great troughs wherein a long row of
coolies (all but naked) are sifting and washing the gravel, which,
perchance, may yield some priceless gem, only to be recognised 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 with 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, chiefly
in the beds of clay or of fine gravel washed down from inaccessible
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 supplied 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, amethysts,
garnet, alexandrite, chalcedony, chrysoberyl, 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 exceptions 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.
Very 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 too 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 presence 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 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
Burmah, and I am told that the Singhalese 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
£5,000, 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 cutting a pearly shell as
to produce a very pretty so-called cat’s-eye, with a luminous internal
ray.
The true cat’s-eye is peculiar to Ceylon. Very fine stones are often
found at Ratnapura and in Rakwane, though the finest specimens 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.
When cut, it was reduced to 170 carats, and was purchased for 9,000
rupees by a merchant who valued it for the London market at 30,000
rupees. A small piece of the original stone weighing 6-1/2 carats was
sold for 600 rupees. (The nominal value of the rupee is 2_s._, but owing
to the depreciation of silver its value when transmitted to England is
at present about 1_s._ 5_d._)
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 ornaments in really good
taste can be bought for a very small sum.
The Morowa Korale has also yielded almost all the fine specimens 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 ruby of good quality.
Sometimes a stone is found, and distinguished as an alexandrite
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 exhibited
in the Ceylon Court at the Indian and Colonial Exhibition in 1886 was
the extraordinary variety of sapphires of various colours, no less than
fifty different tints being there exhibited. Beautiful specimens 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
disguised 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! Occasionally 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 remember 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 exclaimed, ‘Welsh topazes! Oh, in that
case they are worth a mere trifle!’
You can understand that here, where, in addition to the innumerable
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
perplexing, 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.
Then comes the tourmaline, a lovely sparkling gem, which, however, 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
the latter sometimes assumes an æsthetic 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 abundant,
they are found to have undergone the same process of disintegration 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-Ganga, or River of
Gems, 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 be 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
abundance of such lovely rose-coloured quartz as is occasionally 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 precious fragments in every
rocky ravine and over all these alluvial plains.
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. During
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, 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 80 to 100 feet. The cabook is a hard
deposit of plum-pudding stone formed of water-worn pebbles 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 per cent., and of course really valuable ones are very much more
rare. However, even the occasional find of a real treasure suffices 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_l._, and a
few days later doubled his money by selling it in Colombo for 1,200_l._
It was expected to fetch 3,000_l._ in London.
Unfortunately, although some very poor agricultural labourers 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 be regretted that recent
Government 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 Gem 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 £400 and one gentleman who had sunk £1,000
got nothing at all. These not being endowed with the lynx eyes of the
Moormen, are naturally suspicious that their gems have been pilfered,
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, including
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 depth of upwards of 200 feet, necessitating
the free use of pumping machinery. It is estimated that, including
carters, packers and carpenters, who manufacture 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 province likewise yields a fair share.
But three-fourths of the whole supply is dug from pits in the Kalutara
and Kurunegala districts.
It is often found at Ratnapura 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. When 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
warships; 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
BADULLA AND HAPUTALE
Ratnapura to Batticaloa—Festival cars—Polite priests—Belihul-Oya—A pink
rainbow—Badulla—Haldummulla—Haputale Pass—The railway—The Happy
Valley Mission—The Ella Pass—Badulla—Ants and ant-eaters—In
Madoolseme—Burning the forest—A Roman Catholic procession—Strange
compromises—Forest conservancy—Chena-farming—Lantana—The Park
Country—Rugam tank.
From Ratnapura we travelled by easy stages to Haldummulla, halting 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 of other white faces was an unmistakable pleasure.
At Pelmadulla we explored the Buddhist Vihara, 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, &c. To this the priests seemed to attach no
significance; and yet in their ordination service 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, _i.e._,
with five tiers of crystal lamps on gilded and painted 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![136] 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 _when_ 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!
-----
Footnote 136:
Some are more discriminating. I was one day sketching in the temple of
Tiendong, a great Buddhist monastery in China, when a kindly old
priest, who had watched my work with 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, _i.e._, the saints and
their images? See ‘Wanderings in China,’ vol. ii. p. 41.
-----
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 banks 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.
The view from the rest-house at Belihul-Oya is especially charming; the
house stands on the brink of a clear rocky stream, which rising in the
grand Maha-Eliya, _alias_ Horton Plains, rushes down a deep-set valley
from a grand amphitheatre of intensely blue hills. A little lower it
assumes the name of Welawe-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. We also saw strange leaf-insects, so
like green leaves, that, till they flew away, it was impossible to
believe them to be alive; and grasshoppers with red bodies and bright
yellow crests hopped about us in most inquisitive style.
On the following day we drove on, always 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
both 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 women-folk had two days of delightful rest amid these pleasant
surroundings, while the Bishop diverged to meet a party of planters and
hold service at Lamastotte. This was the first district in which coffee
estates struck me as really beautiful, these grand sweeping hillsides,
rising far above us on the one side, and on the other sloping down to
the low district outstretched before 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 supplanted 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.
We 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 communication with
Colombo, is to cross the dividing range at Patipola, which is just above
Haputale, at a height of 6,223 feet above the sea, thence descending to
the south-western plains.
Hitherto the railway terminus has been at Nanuoya, five miles from
Nuwara Eliya, and the difficulties 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
life, 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 Elk Plains, and crossing comparatively tame
grassy hills and patenas, but involving a rise of about 1,000 feet, the
other from Haputale to Summit, rising 1,673 feet 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 be 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 tremendous
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,
embankments, 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 panorama 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 construction—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 poor 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 adhering to the
heavier carriages of a ‘broad gauge’ line, rather than yield to the
temptation 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
by 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 comparatively 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 Tamils, 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 some large villages not one man, woman, or child can read.
Could Christian schools now be established in these villages, a very
great step would be gained, as otherwise the Government grant will go to
aid this wretched _pansala_ system of indigenous education, and it will
then be far more difficult to secure a footing than in the now vacant
field. But except in the town of Badulla and its immediate
neighbourhood, very little Christian work was attempted till 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
professedly Buddhist, are in truth devil-worshippers, sunk in depths of
gloomy superstition, and praying only to malignant spirits 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 preaching 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 Word of Life to all these
800 villages.
Some years ago the Wesleyans opened a successful school for girls in
Badulla, till quite recently the only one in the whole of Uva, which, as
I have just observed, is a district about the size of Wales. 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 footing
had been obtained in the heart of the most neglected district, and
gradually his grand scheme took definite form.
Having obtained from Government a grant of 200 acres of fine
valley-patena 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 poor villagers, he has established a home for orphans and
destitute children, where all shall receive ‘such a training as, under
God’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 industrial 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 undertake 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 already
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
industrial school, which can receive nearly a hundred, but they remain
in the Happy Valley, and in its workshops are duly instructed 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.’[137]
-----
Footnote 137:
‘Story of the Happy Valley Mission.’ By the Rev. Samuel Langdon.
London.
-----
A very important feature of the Mission is a reformatory home, the first
thing of the sort ever commenced in Ceylon. Its dormitories, offices,
teaching, and workrooms are all pronounced admirable, as are also the
flourishing farm 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 commenced 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 of cottages with
mud walls and thatched 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 Batticaloa 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 cocoa and areca palms (like
bunches of splendid wheat). This large bungalow was divided into central
dining-room, with side bedrooms and dressing-rooms all complete. A very
handsome pandal (arch of welcome) was erected in front of the house, and
a comfortable stable and house for the servants at the back. 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 paintings 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 Keta, which suggests its possession 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 Badulla, 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 impartial rule in
this district.[138]
-----
Footnote 138:
See Chapter viii.
-----
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 with
fringes of torn yellow banana-leaves, the effect of which, in connection
with the pandal, is very 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 muslin, 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 recent 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 ambrosial 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 considerable 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 brass 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 interesting
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 must
have been sorely beset with anxieties. One crumbling 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 1817, 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! But 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, but 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[139]—a very different creature, however, from the
ugly hairy ant-eater[140] of South America, although, like it, it has no
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.’
-----
Footnote 139:
_Manis pentadactyla._
Footnote 140:
_Myrmecophaga._
-----
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 can 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 many 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 160 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 topmost
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 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 heavenward mingled
with dense volumes of smoke of every conceivable 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 ravages 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.
There 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 expand, a
small artificial terrace must probably be built, to afford them space
and prevent the rains from washing all the earth from their roots.
Nothing can be more hideous than the country at this stage.
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 from 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 everything. 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, namely, what the Tamil coolies
themselves described as a Catholic Saami (_i.e._, idol) festival. This
was a Roman Catholic procession, in which, however, I believe 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 (_i.e._, 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 on 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 ourselves saw a small Roman
Catholic chapel with the image of Buddha on one side and that of the
Blessed Virgin 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 widely
sanctioned by the Church of Rome in all ages, but nowhere has it been
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 Brahmans,
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 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 complained 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 converts, provided it
was sprinkled with holy water, and that the converts were invested with
it by a Romish 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 was 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 endeavoured 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 successors, these were retained until, in
1704, Pope Benedict XIV. 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 the fair vegetation,
the growth of centuries.
To all lovers of beautiful nature 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.
But looking down from high mountains on the great plains seaward, 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 fine timber has all been cleared for commercial purposes. Till
quite 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.
The 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 difficult, 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 Batticaloa. Moreover, as his sole assistants were two
Government 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 William Gregory 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
neighbourhood 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.
The process of chena-farming 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
families 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 sown for a second crop,
which is ready four months later, the cultivators 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, the
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 are
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
the 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
years 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 Good 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 sealevel up to a height of 3,000 feet,
thousands of acres are covered with impenetrable thickets of this too
luxuriant colonist. Naturally all cultivators consider it an intolerable
nuisance, and rue the day of its introduction to Ceylon; but
nevertheless the lantana has its own useful mission 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 under 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 1891 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 replaced by more prosaic
herds of domesticated animals—cattle, sheep, and horses—who would
doubtless thrive in this grassy and well-timbered region, all of which
is apparently admirably adapted for pastoral purposes.
A minor drawback to these grassy plains in dry weather are the
innumerable ‘ticks’ which swarm in some places. These 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 drop 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-flies,’ 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 marching 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, lent his great strength to
shove the 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. One is
the thinness of their bark, as though Mother 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 slept 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 BROTHER’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 accident, the whole
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 sportsmen.
‘_July 6th, 1848._—_Batticaloa._—On the 4th inst. I slept at
Terricoil, 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, I saw that there had evidently been a desperate
struggle, the chetah[141] having twice thrown the bullock ere he
killed him.
-----
Footnote 141:
_Felis jubata._
-----
‘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 neighbouring
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 appearance 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 approach, 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.
‘The light was so bad that I did not dare to fire. After licking the
flesh two or three times, he retreated out of sight in the darkness;
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 chetah 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 by telling
me that he was mortally wounded, otherwise he would have sprung
forward, and that we would find him the following morning within 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 10th, 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 buffaloes, 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 disappeared 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 annihilating the unfortunate brute,
and were as much disgusted at his escape as I was myself.’
‘_October 14th, 1848.—Charvelacaddi, near Batticaloa._—Two nights ago,
just before sunset, a leopard knocked over a buffalo 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 butt it and plough up
the ground around it, he made a bound over their heads and dashed into
the jungle.
‘The chetah 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 about one-half. I lay in
wait 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 quarry.’
‘_November 29th, 1848._—A farmer in this neighbourhood sent a herd of
goats to feed on a small peninsula. 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 up to the
chetah’s place of ambush, and while he was in the act of pointing out
the direction of its head, the brute sprang upon 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. While
they were busily engaged in examining the ground, the chetah sprang
upon 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. His
body 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.’
‘_December 10th._—Rather a curious thing happened the other day. A
leopard struck down a young buffalo,[142] 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 times
through her own calf, the leopard meanwhile disappearing into the
jungle, doubtless with the intention of returning to feast at leisure
after dark.
-----
Footnote 142:
The Ceylon buffalo is a large, clumsily-built, very strong animal,
with black, shining, leathery skin, and scarcely 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.
-----
‘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 15th, 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 before 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,
_ventre-à-terre_, 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 lookout, however, in the
direction from which they expected he would come. Every now and then
one of them would summon up pluck 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 disappeared 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
direction 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
that he was either 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,
independent 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
brute, 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 200l. 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:—
‘_July 27th, 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-hunting with a friend, and enjoyed myself very much. It is one of
the noblest and at the same time the hardest sport I know. We 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.’
‘1857.—_Batticaloa._—Christmas alone in the backwoods is not a
cheerful season, so I was glad to seek a little excitement in the
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 me. 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 elephant, which
afterwards walked over his body, but got confused, and fortunately
left him. Two months ago, a native, under almost similar
circumstances, 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;[143] but it is well it was not worse, as
these horrid creatures invariably try to get at your face. In my night
excursions, 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. Sometimes
they drop on natives from trees and lacerate them frightfully.
-----
Footnote 143:
See ‘Wild Men and Wild Beasts.’ By Colonel William Gordon Cumming.
Published by David Douglas, Edinburgh.
-----
‘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
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 snakebite. 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
build 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 crocodile’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 _tappal_—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 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
insufferable.’
‘_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 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. When 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 branches
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 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, as 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 11 A.M. I return to breakfast, and the men do likewise, resuming
work at 1. 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
partridges, 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 reply came, ‘Because in cleaning that bird for
master’s dinner I found 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 pass
unnoticed, or probably destroy as vermin. My brother’s delight lay in
taming many such, and his rough-and-ready 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 companions in
many a lonely hour.
CHAPTER XVII
BATTICALOA
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—Pollanarua.
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 population
replaces the half-starved and diseased villagers of fifty years ago.
Parallel with the coast for about thirty miles lies one of those strange
fresh-water lagoons or ‘gobbs’ similar to those on which we sailed up
the western shores of Ceylon,[144] 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.
-----
Footnote 144:
See Chapter iv. A glance at the map will well repay the trouble.
-----
The united waters are prevented from entering the sea (except when in
flood) by a harbour-bar of their own creating, which effectually 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 faultlessly 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 ‘The 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 cemetery 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 the life of one very dear
to us.[145]
-----
Footnote 145:
See page 248.
-----
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 producing
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 coolooroa cradoe_, ‘the crying-shell;’[146]
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.
-----
Footnote 146:
_Cerithium Palustre._
-----
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 (and in
Ceylon quite unique) 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 God. 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 thirty
men to that holy Sacrament. About 130 women and children were kept back
for fuller instruction.
On a lovely afternoon[147] we proceeded by boat to the village of
Navatkuda (_i.e._, the Bay of the Jambu-tree or Rose-apple,[148] 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.
-----
Footnote 147:
September 10th, 1873.
Footnote 148:
‘The Malay Apple’ (_Eugenia Malaccensis_).
-----
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 Bishop’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 return to
Britain; and though the remembrance of the scene on the shores of the
lake has often come back to me, it is only quite recently that I 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[149]—they had
presumed to support a resident schoolmaster, and they and their children
had obtained a little rudimentary education. For religious teaching they
were dependent on the visits of a catechist, and occasionally of a Tamil
clergyman, the Rev. A. Vethacan.
-----
Footnote 149:
The work of collecting the sap of the palm-blossoms is described in
page 418.
-----
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 is
averred 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 unneighbourly 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 advantages
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,[150] 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 commenced a
most unprovoked series of attacks on the poor Christians, 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.
-----
Footnote 150:
The Right Rev. R. S. Copleston, D.D.
-----
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.[151] 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 by one of the Christians in
self-defence (as had been proved in the court).
-----
Footnote 151:
On the 1st December, 1890.
-----
On seeing this truculent-looking person approach, 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 severely, 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 at once, but met
another boat in which 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 1,600
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
neighbourhood 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 lo
these long-suffering Christians, and the Bishop 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 knowledge and love of the
MASTER, Whose love recognises no distinction of caste.[152]
-----
Footnote 152:
Any donations for this object will be gladly received by Mrs.
Coplestone, 16 Denmark Place, Brighton.
-----
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 mêlée ensued in which several of the ‘higher 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, but 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.[153]
-----
Footnote 153:
See Chapter xxii. Subdivisions of Fisher Caste.
-----
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 brethren 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 Britain,
where we are so effectually learning that ‘money maketh man,’ and where
‘Gold 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 execrable
horse dragged us four miles along the lake, and then was replaced by one
rather worse, till we came to a deep sand track, impassable 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 headquarters 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 another lot scoop out the kernel, either to be dried in
the sun as _copra_ for curry-stuff, or sent off to 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 but 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 themselves 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 cobras 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 180 head were
kept at a cost of about £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 productive of obnoxious white
grubs, and many estates sold their herds. Now, however, it is proved
that as a fertiliser for tea it is of inestimable value.
I regret to learn that the grievous murrain which in 1890 decimated 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.’[154]
-----
Footnote 154:
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_.’
-----
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 17-1/2 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 482-1/2 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 the
early morning and in the delicious 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
water-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 peacock’s wing) carries a
broad flat 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 down, 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
Veddahs never eat elephant, buffalo, or bear, though squirrels,
mongooses, 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 failing 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 Veddahs, men and women alike were quite naked and truly hideous;
their mass of long, shaggy black hair, and the men’s long, uncombed
beards, 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 projecting 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 earthenware
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 _patois_. 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 Village Veddahs have a gipsy-like love of migration, and think
little of moving, their frail homes being simply constructed of mud,
reeds, 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 breadfruit 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 began to try teaching
them, and have continued the effort ever since, with moderate success, a
few having embraced Christianity.
Many of 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 forward 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 the
Bishop 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 had
brought with them. This, however, proved a lamentable failure, which we
charitably attributed to the awe of our presence, but which seems to be
generally the case in presence of Europeans, their success in bringing
down game being rather due to their extreme caution in creeping 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.
When 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.[155]
-----
Footnote 155:
As I noted when ‘In the Hebrides,’ p. 261. Certainly, judging from
such verses as Mark vii. 22 and Proverbs xxviii. 22, the ‘evil eye’
must also have suggested some very definite ill to the Jewish mind.
-----
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 effective, for the worthy
man appeared quite perplexed, evidently fearing to lose influence with
his flock. So to solve the difficulty (though I fear, perhaps,
establishing a bad precedent), I took the oars myself and rowed home—an
easy task, being downstream.
Though ‘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 difficulties,
especially in the formation of missionary schools, where almost naked
little brown brats of high caste sometimes begin by displaying the most
amazing spirit of contempt and persecution towards those of lower caste.
The Singhalese (as worshippers of Buddha, who entirely condemned caste
distinctions) ought to be 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 power, or too rude to be the handiwork of any existing race, such
as certain huge dams, rock-fortresses, &c.
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 woman 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 (at least
both men and women are so in youth), who 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. But 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 which 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 drums. 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.
Any Government orders or 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 outcasts, 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 amazement 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 his employer departed may
well be 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 anything to
say to them. These are the Hanomoreyos of Uva (manufacturers of
betel-boxes) and the Ambetteyos 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 pollution! The village dhobies or
washermen, here as in India, are another example of how the highest
castes depend on the low castes for their cleansing and beautifying.
Strange to say, all castes, even the 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.
Within 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 cases
very wet earth), but 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 drinking-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. Where 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 and
dysentery, in the mere traveller, but too often, in the case of poor
villagers compelled to use it habitually, 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,[156] consisting simply of three large wicker baskets, each
one foot smaller than the last, the space between 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.
-----
Footnote 156:
For many years Inspector-General of Police in Ceylon.
-----
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 Pollanarua,
where we found that a group of most delightful huts had been erected for
us beneath the cool shade of large trees growing actually on the
embankment of Topa-Wewa, 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,
baths—Porcupine trap—Rock-temple—Gigantic images—Intercourse with
China—Minery Lake—Oath-stone—Temple of the tank gods—Circles of
pottery—Crocodiles—Kantalay tank—Tamblegam oysters.
Although Pollanarua (or Toparé, 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-Wansae
or ‘Lesser Dynasty,’ so called in Singhalese records in uncomplimentary
contrast to the grand monarchs of the Surya-Wansae or Solar Dynasty
(also called the Maha-Wansae or Powerful 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 mediæval 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,’[157] 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 became tributary to Lanka.
-----
Footnote 157:
The ancient name of Ceylon.
-----
Whatever this large-minded king undertook was carried out on a scale so
magnificent as to be only rendered possible by the employment 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 disrepair during the prolonged
wars, and made or repaired 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 101 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 flowering 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 dancing,
schools and libraries, public baths and pleasant gardens. Prakrama’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 diverting 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 overruns
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 district 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 Toparé, 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 it will tax
the skill of the ablest engineers to avert these oft-recurring dangers.
At the time of our visit to Pollanarua, 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?
How beautiful those nights were, with the brilliancy of glittering
starlight 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
minutus_), 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 Bakamuna_, 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 ‘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 blocks, 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 were 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 cyclopean statue of King
Prakrama, sculptured in full relief from a mass of dark rock. He is
represented reading an ‘ola,’ _i.e._, a long scroll, and the sculptor
has not given him a pleasant expression. The height of the statue is 11
feet 6 inches. By some accident the upper half of his head was broken
and has been replaced rather on one side. The Government Agent (Sir F.
Dickson), who was with us, bade his men climb on to the shoulders of the
statue and put it straight. With undisguised horror they refused to
stand on the shoulders of a king, but they climbed up the rock behind
him, and with great difficulty contrived to reach it and do what was
needed.
I found a very attractive spot for a comprehensive sketch at the Wata
Dágé 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 butterflies that
hover around, and of the white woman from a far-away isle who dares to
invade his sanctuary.
[Illustration:
THE WATA-DÁGÉ, OR ROUND TREASURE-HOUSE, POLLANARUA.
(Looking to the Sat Mal Prasadé, or Seven-Storied Building.)
]
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.[158]
-----
Footnote 158:
See Chapter xiii.
-----
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 frolicsome monkeys of all
ages and sizes, jumping, swinging, chattering, scolding, grimacing, as
if they were trying to show off their accomplishments 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.
The clear blue of the sky forming a background to 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 fanciful priest.
Between it and the Wata Dágé lies a very remarkable huge block 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 is 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.
Very 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 depended 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, 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 destitute 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 tablet another inscription 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.
[Illustration: THE JETAWANARAMA AND THE KIRI VIHARA AT POLLANARUA.]
Very special interest attaches to the Delada Maligawa, a temple built
for the reception of Buddha’s famous tooth. It is thought that the Wata
Dágé 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 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
Jetawanarama 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_ or 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 coating 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, facing 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 fact 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 Dagoba 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 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 innumerable
sculptured pillars, which alone remain to suggest vanished glories, for
the buildings which they supported have wholly disappeared. 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 supported 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-smelling bats. Radiant
peacocks and emerald-green parroquets, orioles, barbets, and many other
birds of gay plumage, flash athwart the sunlight 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.
[Illustration:
THE GAL-VIHARA: ROCK TEMPLE AT POLLANARUA.
(Sitting Buddha is 15 ft. above pedestal; erect, 23 ft.; recumbent, 46
ft.)
]
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 perpendicular 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.
To me the shrine 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 which 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. Unfortunately, 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 Mahawanso records the formation of this
rock-temple by King Prakrama, and describes only two images of Gautama,
one sitting, the other reclining. 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 suppose corporeal
growth in the holy dead, hence the necessity for graves of preternatural
length, as in the case of that of Eve at Jeddah, which measures at least
60 feet.[159]
-----
Footnote 159:
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 Balkh, 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. It is built of brick, and represents Buddha in Nirvana. In China
and Japan also he is represented on a colossal scale.
-----
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 extracts 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 strangers,
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-Ho, with sixty-two junks and a
strong military force, on an embassy to Sumatra, Java, Cambodia, Siam,
and other places, Ceylon was included, the embassy arriving there in
1408.
Wijaya-Bahu, however, endeavoured treacherously to capture his 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 _bêche-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 _bêche-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 construction of temples
and of tanks for the irrigation of temple-lands. It is said that Minery
was designed to irrigate twenty thousand fields belonging to the
Jetawanarama Vihara 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 malignantly 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,[160] 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.
-----
Footnote 160:
As our ancestors did on the Oath-stone of Iona. See ‘In the Hebrides,’
p. 70.
-----
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 discovered this holy of holies, to his great disgust and
my own unbounded satisfaction.
[Illustration: A FOREST SANCTUARY.—OFFERINGS OF RED POTTERY TO THE GOD
OF THE TANK AT MINERY.]
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 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 to represent Maha 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 conception 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 accumulations 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
appearance. 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 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 undergrowth. One of these creepers[161] bears
a gigantic bean, always suggestive 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.
-----
Footnote 161:
The _Entada pursætha_, called by the Singhalese the Maha-pus-wuel, or
great hollow climber.
-----
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, with 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 embankment 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.
We 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.
But 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,
buffaloes (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 Pollanarua, and around all the
great tanks, are frequented by very large herds of domestic buffaloes
and black cattle brought over from the mainland _viâ_ 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,[162] 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.
-----
Footnote 162:
Tennant mentions having seen a specimen 250 feet 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).
-----
The apparent extent of the lake is much diminished by the luxuriant
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 float the
creamy cups of white lilies—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 17-1/2 feet in
length, which swallowed a native whole, barring his head and one hand,
which it had previously bitten 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. When they have
something to eat afloat, you see only their noses and foreheads above
water, but as soon as they see that they are observed down they drop to
the bottom.
Often they lie embedded in mud among tall reeds and water-grasses, and
often only the quivering of these betrays their presence. 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 durable 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. The 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 18_s._, 20_s._, and
26_s._ 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,’ which is
rather like a very large ungainly trout, but is considered excellent.
Once more we took the road, 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 cacti 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 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 explore 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 profiting 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 connecting it with
Minery, were practically remade by Prakrama Bahu about 1153, 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 overwhelming 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-transparent 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 betel-chewers. So wonderfully are 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.
[Illustration:
THE SAAMI ROCK AT TRINCOMALEE.
(Worship at Sunset.)
]
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
embrasures, 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
breakwater. 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
projecting 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
submerged volcano.
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 Depôt, 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[163] (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.)[164]
-----
Footnote 163:
The seat of the Government Agency was shortly afterwards removed to
Batticaloa.
Footnote 164:
Owing to the Bishop’s serious illness.
-----
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 Tirukkonathamalai,
_i.e._, ‘the Mountain of Holy Konathar,’ whoever he may have been.)
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 picturesque 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,[165]
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.
-----
Footnote 165:
Sir James Emerson Tennant mentions this worship as occurring once a
year, on the 23rd January.
-----
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 poured them out on
the rock as a libation.[166] 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.
-----
Footnote 166:
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-Cumming.
Published by Chatto and Windus.
-----
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 Puranas 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 quarry to supply building material
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 Van 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 Dondra 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,[167] who habitually minister at the bloodstained 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.
-----
Footnote 167:
‘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.
-----
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 column
Attest the feebleness of mortal hand,
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 waves, 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 every 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 1795, they were here besieged
by a British force consisting of the 71st, 72nd, 73rd, and 77th
regiments, together with artillery, and two battalions of Sepoys, under
command of General 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 possession.
Previous to that date this beautiful bay had witnessed many a struggle
between the covetous European Powers, who each craved a 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 difficulties 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 fleet commanded by Admiral Suffrein, by 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 commanded 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 1801, 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 Depôt. 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 becoming 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 picturesqueness of 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 wherewith 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!
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 resounding sonorous call—a
single note, ‘Hoop! 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 flowers.
Some have maroon bands on the breast, others primrose-colour; they love
the fragrant pink oleander and scarlet hibiscus 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
rare.
Happily the lovely little purple sunbird is more common. Its head 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 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.[168] The place is called Kannya,
some say in ‘memory of’ seven celestial virgins;[169] 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
thirtieth day after the death of their kinsfolk. A ruined temple, sacred
to Ganesa, the elephant-headed god of wisdom, proves that he received at
least a share of homage.
-----
Footnote 168:
There are also hot springs at Badulla, Patipal Aar, near Batticaloa
Kitool, and Medawewa, near Bintenne, and at Yavi Ooto, in the Veddah
country. In all the water is so pure as to be good for cooking
purposes.
Footnote 169:
_Kannee_, ‘a virgin.’
-----
Some distance to the north, at Mannakandal, in the Wanni, 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,[170] 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.
-----
Footnote 170:
_Borassus flabelliformis._
-----
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 bunches of 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 is _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 (doubtless 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 as _jaggery_
sugar, of which a very large amount is used in the island.
In order to obtain this sap, the toddy-drawers, who are marvellously
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 of
developing into a thing of loveliness, is reduced to pulp, but without
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 insectivorous
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 number are
shown to be caused by falling from trees. I have this list for 1879,
1883, 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. Sometimes 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
being 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
palm, the natives immerse the newly-felled timber in the sea, and there
leave it to season. Unlike the ebony tree, which conceals 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 fifty good uses to which
the cocoa-palm 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 supply 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 parchment—_olas_—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.
The general effect of a great expanse of palmyras is certainly dull and
monotonous, but when seen near, nothing can be more picturesque 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 stem like a huge
corkscrew. When, with advancing years, these die off, the solid
leaf-stalk and coarse net-like fibre remain, giving the black 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.
[Illustration: THE LILY SHORE, NEAR TRINCOMALEE.]
Such marriages of the sacred banyan and palm-tree, though by no means
uncommon, are regarded by the natives, whether Tamil or 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 ungrateful parasite strangles the protector of its
infancy, and is left standing alone, twisted into every conceivable
fantastic 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 delicate
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.)[171]
-----
Footnote 171:
‘At Home in Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 257, and vol. ii. p. 2.
-----
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-car and many another shell; brown
children paddling tiny canoes made of rudely hollowed logs; a
lilac-and-green 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 surrounded by
aloes and flowery shrubs. Add to all this the vivid light and colour of
sea and sky, and surely you can realise something of the charm of many a
home on this sweet Isle.
CHAPTER XX
TRINCOMALEE TO GALLE
Trincomalee—A Tamil play—A luminous sea—Batticaloa—Flying-fish—Galle—
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 delighted, 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 consisted 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 confusing, 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
drama was even more primitive than this, and yet our kings and their
courtiers could sit out a ‘morality’ or a ‘mystery’ continuing for nine
or ten hours.[172]
-----
Footnote 172:
On such occasions the stage was a rush-strewn scaffolding, with a
light 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, 2d. For keeping fire at
ditto, 4_d._ For setting the world on fire, 5_d._ To Crowe for making
three worlds, 3_s._’ The chief actors received 3_s._ 4_d._ each, but
the _prima donna_ only 2_s._
It is curious to learn that, as in China at the present day, so in
Britain prior to A.D. 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!
-----
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_,[173] 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.
-----
Footnote 173:
One of the many names by which Ceylon was known to the ancients and to
the writers of ‘The Arabian Nights.’
-----
The sea there is intensely phosphorescent, and it seemed that 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, fairy-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.
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, like 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 overspread 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. When 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
appearance 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.[174]
-----
Footnote 174:
I have myself witnessed just such an effect of dazzling light,
illuminating the whole surface of the water, during two midnight
storms in New Zealand. Vide ‘At Home in Fiji,’ vol. ii. p. 169.
-----
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!
I am told that a similar appearance has occasionally been observed in
the North Sea, and even on the Northumbrian coast; and the fishers have
noted that its presence indicated a very poor herring season, and that
the temperature of the sea was unusually high 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.[175]
-----
Footnote 175:
The fisher-folk of Shields and Tynemouth, 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.
-----
We 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 _Serendib_ 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 exquisite, 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 apparently
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 remuneration was
expected, whereas the experience of the next fifteen years was one of
continual outlay, ceaseless watchfulness to defend the young plantations
from the ravages of most mischievous boring beetles,[176] rats, white
ants, herds of wild hogs, porcupines, troops of elephants, and other
foes, and no remuneration whatever.
-----
Footnote 176:
_Oryctes rhinoceros._
-----
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,
seaweed, 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 fourteenth 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.
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.
We 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
breakers. 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. Moreover, 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 quiets
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 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 mountain 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.
We reached Galle on the following afternoon, and found it beautiful as
ever, but the masts of yet one more newly sunken steamer 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 Bishop, 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.
On the following day the Archdeacon drove us to see the large Orphanage
at Buona Vista, which crowns the summit of the steep headland which
forms the southern arm of the harbour, and commands a lovely view of
Galle. We were most kindly received by Mr. and Mrs. Marks,[177] 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 surrounding 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 uninfluenced by Christian teaching, a considerable number
receive impressions, which, at a later period, develop into active
principles.
-----
Footnote 177:
The Orphanage is now under the care of Miss Callender.
-----
Strange to say, the heathen parents, though perfectly aware of the
heart’s desire of the teachers, make no objection whatever 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 Wesleyan Mission and its schools.
It is in connection with a large chapel in the town, at which services
are 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 conquerors
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
Gindura 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 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 missionary in charge, Mr. Balding, narrowly
escaped being killed, an incident of which he and his parishioners are
perpetually reminded by the sound of a cracked bell, said to have
previously been 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,[178] 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.
-----
Footnote 178:
_Hydro saurus salvator._
-----
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 peaceful
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. Occasionally
a rash aggressor receives a broken arm or leg, as a warning against
molesting harmless fellow-creatures; consequently the Singhalese treat
these huge lizards with considerable respect. The all-destroying
foreigner occasionally 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 Galle since the memorable occasion when 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 course I longed to
return to Wakwalla, 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 _Serendib_ 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 waterreefs
which come too near the surface for the safety of the harbour, as many a
good ship has proved to her cost.[179]
-----
Footnote 179:
I am told that no less than twelve steamers have been wrecked in Galle
Harbour, _i.e._, more than one-third of the total number of
thirty-four which have been lost on the shores of Ceylon.
-----
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 predominance 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 shades of olive or
emerald greens, while a considerable number of corals are verdant as the
plants they so closely resemble.[180]
-----
Footnote 180:
Such are the Montipora, Madrepora, Millepora, Macandrina, Astræa,
Alcyonia, Anthophylla, Heteropora.
-----
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 of 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 plantations were
made, and the waste lands transformed to their present beauty. But 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 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 ubiquitous, 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-palm 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 emphatically 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
quite 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.
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,[181] the precious provider of ‘golden eggs’ in the form of
material for all things needful to existence?
-----
Footnote 181:
Here is a case in point:—
‘MURDER ARISING OUT OF A CLAIM FOR A COCO-NUT TREE.—On September 11,
1890, Josappu, a tavern-keeper of Payyagala, was severely assaulted by
his cousin Bachappu and two others. The injured man was removed to the
Kalutara Hospital, where he 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 aforesaid.’
-----
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 manpower, 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 their father 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 increasing 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 astringent lotion, bitter
as alum, is obtained from the flower, which also (when bruised in the
manner I described when speaking of the palmyra-palm) yields toddy,
vinegar, sugar, and, when distilled, the intoxicating 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 fact that the
sobriety once characteristic of the people is rapidly disappearing, 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 temptation 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. When 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 Government,
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 possibly
do so. Never was the old proverb that _l’occasion fait le larron_[182]
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.[183]
-----
Footnote 182:
Opportunity makes the thief.
Footnote 183:
I see that, at the auction of arrack rents for 1890, the successful
bidder for the privilege of farming Kandy paid 43,000 rupees; Nuwara
Eliya fetched 70,000; while the whole of the Central Province was
knocked down for 380,000 rupees. All the provinces 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 when the
rents for the Central Province were put up for sale by auction from
July 1891, to June 1892, with the strong recommendation of the
Government Agent to the renters to put in good bids, and not trouble
Government to call for higher tenders, his advice was so well received
that 470,000 rupees were offered for the lot, being 90,000 rupees 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 rupees
more than last year); and Puttalam rents were purchased for 35,900
rupees, being an advance of 4,000 on last year.
-----
Nor is this true only of the intoxicants natural to the country.
Government 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 opinion.
For plain speaking on so grave a subject, I may refer to the official
report 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 Western
Province (apart from customs and railway receipts) is made up of
licenses chiefly for the sale of intoxicants and such narcotics as bhang
and opium, he proves that an increase in such revenue means simply a
corresponding increase in demoralisation and every form of 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.’[184]
-----
Footnote 184:
I have here spoken only of the pushing of the trade in arrack. A very
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 iniquitous traffic.
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 rupees.
In England 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 TO 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.
-----
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 intoxicants are
frequently in league with the smugglers and unlicensed arrack-sellers,
actually sharing in their profits. Vigilant and conscientious indeed
must be the police who could cope with such a state of things.
To return to the more legitimate uses of the good cocoa-palm. 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, quite filling
up the shell.
The said shell furnishes the household drinking-cups, spoons, lamps, 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 bridges,
tethering cattle, &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 fact.
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 imperishable. 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 manufactured. I must
not forget to mention that cocoa-nut water mixed 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.
Well may this grateful Isle adopt the cocoa-palm as the emblem on her
coinage!
A very elegant use of the young leaves is in the decoration of 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
Mātara—The leper king—Leper Hospital—Dondra Head—Tangalle—Mulgirigalla—
Hambantota—Salt lakes—Magama—Happy hunting-grounds—Kataragama.
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 Mātara, a most lovely place at the mouth of the
Nilwalla Ganga (_i.e._ the river of blue sand), and only four miles from
Dondra Head, which is the southernmost point of the island.[185]
-----
Footnote 185:
During my 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 Civil
servants from one corner of the Isle to another, either as a
‘permanent’ appointment or as _locum tenens_ 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 around 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.
-----
Leaving Galle before daybreak by the royal mail coach, I had an
exquisite 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 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[186] which come every night, to roost in the tall cocoa-palms,
returning to the mainland at early dawn to forage for themselves
wherever human homes suggest a prospect of obtaining food by fair means
or foul.
-----
Footnote 186:
_Corvus splendens._
-----
The small red-tiled, white-pillared rest-house is 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. Unfortunately,
there are, 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.
The 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 Leper King, supposed from his dress to have been a
Singhalese king of the twelfth century—some say 589. 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 Belligama, 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 his sore disease. And he was
healed, and as his thank-offering he richly endowed the temple at
Welligama.
Sad to say, the ‘tree of blessing’ has lost its magic power, and the
poor lepers of Ceylon are deemed as incurable as those of other lands.
Happily they are not very numerous, only about 1,800 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 noteworthy, because
in Buddhist statues the first and second fingers alone are generally
upraised, in the conventional attitude of benediction.
[Illustration: THE NILWALLA RIVER AT MATARA]
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 dedicated to some
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 Mātara, 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.[187]
-----
Footnote 187:
On May 29, 1891, a very singular phenomenon occurred at Mātara,
namely, _a shower of red rain_ which fell on the town, extending over
a radius of about two miles. Some of this strange rain-water was
preserved by the wondering natives.
-----
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 Mātara 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 complete
the stanza. The poet Kalidas saw the couplet, and added another, which
he committed to the care of a lady of evil 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 themselves, 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 surrounded 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 lanterns. 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 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 shapeless 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 earliest 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
attractions 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, Tangalia 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 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 far as the ‘Great’ and ‘Little Basses,’ within 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 Portuguese, 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. They are 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 headland 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 noonday 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 homeward 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 encroachments
of the sea it has been gradually reduced. Native traditions tell how it
was originally 5,120 miles in circumference, and how, by a terrible
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, B.C. 2387, a date which curiously approximates 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. Hence 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,[188] who
accordingly fled to Gampola, whence he endeavoured to send a message to
the queen written on a neatly rolled-up palm leaf.
-----
Footnote 188:
In view of the custom of polyandry, formerly prevalent throughout the
Isle, Tissa’s jealousy was unjustifiable, as every woman was entitled
to half-a-dozen husbands, 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 Cotta, near the Kelany River, at the time
when the Portuguese built their first fort at Colombo, had a wife in
common with his brother.
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 Himalayas,’ p. 406, published by Chatto & Windus.
-----
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 people by the sacrifice of his
own beautiful virgin daughter, Sudhá-Déwi, 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
extending 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
elephant to watch the progress of the raging waters, the earth opened
and vomited flames which 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.[189] 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.
-----
Footnote 189:
Maha-bali-poor, or Mavalipuram.
-----
To return to our peaceful modern life at Mātara 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 beneath the cool shade of a
great banyan-tree, kind natives brought us a gift of ripe plantains and
a great bowl of delicious creamy buffalo-, a dainty generally shunned by
Europeans, on the ground that buffaloes are not strict vegetarians.
When 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,’[190] 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. They 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.
-----
Footnote 190:
_Platydactylus._
-----
One enormous spider, the _Mygale fasciata_, 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.[191]
-----
Footnote 191:
See nest of the Californian tarantula, in ‘Granite Crags of
California,’ p. 320, by C. F. Gordon-Cumming.
-----
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
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. Occasionally 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 muskrats
(_alias_ shrews), which 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 everything
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 of the
storm resounded the roar of the mighty waves as they thundered on the
shore; for at Tangalle, unlike most of the harbours 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 unclouded blaze of living light.
The charms of that shore, with the quaintly-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, whose 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, conspicuously 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 Buddha, one of which, a huge recumbent figure,
resting beneath the shadow of the dark maroon-coloured rock, and shaded
by the light 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.
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 invade their quiet 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 confidence. When 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 the year 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 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
are in the same style as those of Anuradhapura and Pollanarua, 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.
But though bad masters, they are far too good as servants 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 clothe the eastern side of 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 sportsmen, and
the country about the Nipple Hills to the north of Tissamaharama 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 large 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 dangerous 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 their paradise 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 antagonists 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. Campbell,
Inspector-General of Police, a description of a night journey across
this district, which gives some 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, sometimes
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.
‘About midnight I fell asleep, and being thoroughly tired, I was quite
unconscious when we 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 for 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 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, owing 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 quickly, 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 buffalo’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, we 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.’[192]
-----
Footnote 192:
The Inspector-General of Police and of all the Prisons in Ceylon had
little time to let grass grow under his feet. I remember Mr.
Campbell’s driving one morning, quite as a matter of course, from
Colombo to Negombo, thence starting on an extensive round of
inspection, returning the same evening, having driven upwards or
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 shoulders; yet any
breakdown in health is invariably attributed, not to overwork, but to
the climate!
-----
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
elephant-charmer, who, whenever they approached a herd, warned them off
by the mystic sentence, ‘_Om am ari nari saringham saravaye_,’ at the
sound of which the boldest elephants turned tail and fled!
This South-Eastern 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 December; 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 complaint 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 Tissamaharama, 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 unremunerative (in
return for the enormous outlay on its restoration) as to have been
deemed well-nigh a failure. That, however, is an impression 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, B.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 Kataragama (_alias_ Maha Sen),
one of the demons worshipped by the aborigines, afterwards 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 mysterious curtain, before which
kneel crowds of pilgrims from every part of India, sometimes even
high-caste Brahmans from 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.[193]
-----
Footnote 193:
It is curious to observe how widespread is this custom of hanging up
models of the limb 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 Egypt, generally entwined with figures of serpents,
emblematic of recovered health. Hands, arms, ears, eyes, and other
members, modelled in terracotta or carved in ivory, have been found at
Thebes and elsewhere, with a thanksgiving 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
presentation of such _ex votos_ at Roman Catholic 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 wax 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.)
-----
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 consequent risk
of outbreaks of cholera, that in 1874 it was found necessary 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 full 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 cholera, the number was officially restricted to a
total of 150 persons, namely, thirty to represent Colombo, thirty for
Kandy, and as many for Galle, Kurunegalla, and Batticaloa.
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 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1883
4,000 7,000 1,200 60 107 44 15 10,000
For a lover of the picturesque this pilgrimage is specially attractive,
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 glittering 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 attempted 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.
CHAPTER XXII
RETURN TO COLOMBO
Bentota—Lilies—Mangroves—Kalutara—Fisher castes—Ordeal by boiling oil—
Colombo.
On my return journey from Mātara 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 tamarind-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 freshwater 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 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 proportion 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 The Kobaiya is a small
grey turtle-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
constant supply of cold water for thirsty wayfarers. Here is one
sketched at Bentota on the brink of the sea. A large red chattie of
porous earthenware 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 sunshade 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.
Here is a very primitive ping-chattie poised on a tripod formed by three
sticks, the upper end of which supports a thatch of palm-leaves. This is
in a cocoa-palm 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 turbaned 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. This 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 ‘meritorious
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 by two sticks.
Just one more page! Here is a ping-tallie sketched at Dickwella. It is a
most elaborately sculptured stone font, which (but that it represents
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 assemble in flocks
and help themselves to the contents of the chatties so freely that they
literally become drunk and riotous!
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,[194] 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.
-----
Footnote 194:
_Lygodium scandens._
-----
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 Galle a beautiful white lily,[195] 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
convolvulus, 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.
-----
Footnote 195:
_Pancratium zeylanicum._
-----
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 downwards, 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 continues growing till
it reaches the mud, or till the seed-vessel drops off, in which case it
equally lands in the 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 putrefaction, 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 occasionally
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 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 Ratnapura, 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 temptations.
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 rigidly 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 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 be 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 _tableaux vivants_,
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 themselves 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 Kalutara 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 the offence, were very much
aggrieved that British 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. When 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 victim
is that he is at liberty to sprinkle over his adversary as much boiling
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, consequently 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 Pantura (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 _à 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 part of it being available for wheel traffic, though here
and there portions still leave room for improvement.
Since we parted at Galle, the Bishop had been ordered to Malta on
sick-leave, and the Campbells had most kindly offered me headquarters at
their pleasant temporary home in Captain’s Gardens, which is a
promontory jutting into the Lake of Colombo, and clothed 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 spread 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 charmingly
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; every one around was gasping and craving for the
‘Chota monsoon’[196] 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.
-----
Footnote 196:
_Chota_, small.
-----
[Illustration: COCOA PALMS: SHORE OF COLOMBO LAKE.]
It was fortunate that I was not troubled with nerves, for the house of
which I was sole occupant had five outer doors and seventeen 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.
CHAPTER XXIII
NATIVE POLICE
Native police—Frequency of stabbing and of perjury—Intricate division of
property—Too many legal advisers—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,[197] under whose command it continued
till this year, 1891—a force of which he has good reason to be proud.
-----
Footnote 197:
Now Sir George W. R. Campbell, K.C.M.G.
-----
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 regarded 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 detection 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. Nevertheless, 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 the
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 of
possibilities. However, soon afterwards Mr. Campbell was sent to Penang
as Lieutenant-Governor for eighteen months, and 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 handful 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
majority 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 1_s._ 6_d._, represents £112 16_s._ 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. 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 sixteen 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, _i.e._, 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 expended,
both as regards the construction of really handsome buildings at a very
low cost, and also in the excellent taste displayed in the careful
laying out of the grounds, with such profusion of flowering 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 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
offices 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 31_s._ 6_d._ of a
first-class London constable with the salary of the European constables
in Ceylon, most of whom receive less than 10_s._ a week, _minus_ several
deductions!
Now, as regards our primary notions of the _raison d’être_ of a police
force, namely, the detection and suppression of crime, I confess 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, resulting 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 whom
the murderer bears no ill-will, perhaps 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 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 responsible for
Singhalese crime is shown by the fact that nearly all 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 Ponambalam 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 was 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 _with a
piece of sugar-cane_, so that he died.
At Batticaloa a man quarrelled with his mother about a cow, and killed
her with a stick. For this he received four months’ imprisonment.
Appuwa, a Singhalese cultivator, while drunk, stabbed with a knife and
so killed his little daughter Kirihami, aged four years, owing to 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.
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 happily
stamped out.
As examples of crime in 1889, 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 schoolboy 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 Babie 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 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 acquitted and the inhuman father
was hanged within the walls of Galle gaol.
Another case is that of a man who shot his own brother in order to bring
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 revealed, 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 identification in case the body should be
found. Found it was, and identified 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 £20), 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
personæ_ 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.
But there was a dark side to this attractive person. In his private life
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 madness 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 undoubtedly
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 shoulder-blade, 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-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 Fernando 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 Fernando’s belt, and buried in the
jungle in order to ruin Mendis, the head being removed in order to
prevent its being proved that the body was _not_ that of Fernando. (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 telltale 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, consider
it as a fine art, and that the courts of law are the field where it may
be most effectually and brilliantly practised. Mr. Campbell 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[198] 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 arrive at truth where all is falsehood_, and a
virtual denial of justice often leads to the perpetration of fresh
crime.’
-----
Footnote 198:
Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Bengal.
-----
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 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 repaid_; 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 are 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
impoverishment 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 stick, or even 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 blow by the court is
quite as severe as the other, and the demoralisation 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 Panaduré, 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 committed 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 complained
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 trifling stamp duty, amounting only to 15 cents on
each criminal charge and 5 cents on each subpœna of an accused person,
or of one summoned as a witness.
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 turns 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 questions 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 there
were in the Isle only two Dutchmen who did the whole work of advocates.
Even in that time the number had increased to 16 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, ‘outdoor 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 impoverishment.
It is, perhaps, not to be wondered at that so many favour a profession
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, Wickremanaike, Rajakuruna, &c. Turning to the Colombo
district, I find in succession fourteen of the family of Perera with
such Christian names as Andris, Juan, Paulus, Manual, &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.[199]
-----
Footnote 199:
I trust these gentlemen will pardon my quoting real names to
illustrate an interesting 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 MURDERER WANTED.—Induruwabadahelage Jema 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 apprehension and conviction.’
-----
Some historical suggestion may perhaps be gathered from the geographical
distribution of these names. Thus in the list 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 are thus
distinguished. In the Eastern and Northern Provinces, including
Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Jaffna, and Manaar, 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 postponements, 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 unnecessarily
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.
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 surveyors, while the false rupees, though
generally manufactured by Singhalese goldsmiths, are 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 sickness 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, 121 died from snake-bites, 87
by accidentally drowning in rivers and tanks, 134 by falling into wells,
383 by falling from trees, and 33 from gunshot wounds. (The increasing
misuse of firearms forms a notable feature in recent police reports.)
Almost every year wild beasts are responsible 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. Mr.
Campbell says: ‘The days have gone by in which we could 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 planters
to guard, but still more when these are gathered and travelling 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 consequence 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 remainder 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 itself 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 throughout its journey, and theft becomes
well-nigh impossible.
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 suffering and
mortality, and the too probable development of cholera in the Isle.
The system of police registration of all dogs is so rigidly enforced in
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, &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
neighbourhood 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.
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 continue 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 poor
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 the
huge camp of 10,000 persons on the arid sea-beach, to which are daily
brought millions 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. The boats start at
midnight and return the following afternoon, 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 manifold
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 Isle, namely, 200
British-born, 454 Eurasians, 86 Malays, 53 Tamils, 107 Singhalese, and
33 others. The headquarters of the force are at Colombo, but companies
are stationed at Kandy, Badulla, and Kurunegalla.[200]
-----
Footnote 200:
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 will henceforth be less zeal in
promoting a more extensive sale of arrack.]
-----
Long may it be ere they are called out to defend the beautiful Isle
against foreign foes!
CHAPTER XXIV
IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS
Kurunegalla—Monastery of Lanka Tileka—On Allegalla Peak—A footprint—
Gangarowa—In the planting 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 mediæval ages successively
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. 1319 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 superficially
by native merchants. Hundreds of men are, however, employed, and
thousands of tons are annually brought hence to Colombo.
The Government Agent’s house, in which I was hospitably entertained—a
pleasant, red-tiled bungalow, with wide, white-pillared verandah—
occupies the site of the Maligawa, 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 between 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 Pollanarua 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
parroquet, 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 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 embankments.
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 _dewali_ 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 without 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 Gampola 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
faultlessly 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.
[Illustration:
COFFEE FIELDS ON THE SLOPES OF ALLEGALLA PEAK.
(On the summit there is a _partly_ natural indentation, which
duplicates _the_ Footprint.)
]
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.
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
effectually, 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 quickly 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.
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 Gangarowa,
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 Dimbula,
Dickoya, Maskeliya, Kalibooka, The Knuckles, Deltotte, &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 exquisite
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 themselves by washing as much soil as possible from the roots
of the nearest coffee-trees.
But 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 books 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 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 become, 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 _could_
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 own 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 notwithstanding 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 between the
reclaimed and unreclaimed land—the one so dismal, with 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 unattainable.
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 trackless 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 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 European 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 received and
despatched no less than 21,090 telegrams on railway business, without
counting private messages;[201] 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.
-----
Footnote 201:
At Colombo, in the same year, the railway telegrams received and
despatched numbered 20,955, and post-office telegrams 50,487.
-----
Now that the steed has been stolen, and vast tracts totally denuded 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 firewood 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 per 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 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 precaution
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.
Alas! 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 (_Hemileia 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 bugs 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 employment 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
history 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 Hoorne, to whom a few seeds had been presented 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 forwarded 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, probably by
Arab traders, but the secret of its fragrant berries had remained
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, but 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 plantations in
the low-lying, thoroughly tropical districts of Galle and Negombo, both
on the sea-coast. The result was highly unfavourable, 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 Barnes, 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_s._ 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
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 £350; 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 lamentable 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 phœnix-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 fat 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 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 previously 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 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 difficulty, 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—_Camellia 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 on a few
bushes in the district of Madulsima, 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 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 nourishment from land never
reached by the coffee, which is a surface-feeder.
I have already referred[202] 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 countries, it has
proved remarkably hardy and free from disease. Certainly blights 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 _Helopeltis Antonii_, 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.
-----
Footnote 202:
See p. 5.
-----
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 disposes 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 sometimes 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—_e.g._, 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
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
automatically, thus securing the most rigorous cleanliness—a very marked
feature in favour of Ceylon tea _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, without 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 Linnæus so
happily named it) is familiar to us.
To obtain these, 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[203] 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.
-----
Footnote 203:
These problems have to be puzzled out with regard to each separate
product. For instance, with regard to coffee, it is found that on
elevations of from 2,000 to 6,000 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.
-----
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-grown
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 below
the coffee zone.
The methods of cultivation and of obtaining the largest quantity of bark
without killing the poor trees in the process of partial flaying, were
so very experimental, that in some cases this cinchona-planting proved a
failure.[204] It is a peculiarly 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.
-----
Footnote 204:
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 sixteen 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.
-----
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 exorbitant price. It is said that
quinine 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.[205]
-----
Footnote 205:
Mr. J. Ferguson, of the _Ceylon Observer_, 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 Fen 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 Chrysê,’ 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 beneficial this
tonic would also be to horses and cattle in malarial regions, if only
it could reach the consumer at anything approaching the modest price
which would pay the cultivator.
-----
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.
One of the sorest difficulties with which the planter has ceaselessly 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 _bonâ 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.[206] 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.
-----
Footnote 206:
Mr. Thomas Dickson.
-----
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 sometimes
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 contrived to make a
living in Ceylon). When at home in Southern India, their average
earnings are between 3_l._ and 4_l._ a year, on which they maintain
themselves and their families, always reserving a margin for
temple-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 vegetables, 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_d._ to 1_s._ a day; a woman can earn about 7_d._, and a
child 3_d._; 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;
‘_puir man! he’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
_he was making his wife keep it_!
Of course, on estates, employers take care that their coolies do 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 whatever, 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 (_Ficus Religiosa_), 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
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.
Bosanquet’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 dorré’ (_i.e._, master). It
was quite useless; so 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 _must_ bait the horse and breakfast at his house; where, accordingly,
we were most hospitably entertained, 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 Kaduganava_; but supposing I am on my way to
Kaduganawa, I must bid them carry me to _Mudaliyarthottam_. 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 continues to be known as
_Anandawatte_, Glen Cairn as _Manickambantotte_, Gorthie as
_Hindagalla_, Blair Athol as _Sinne Darrawella_, Braemore as _Kooda
Malleapoo_, Fassifern as _Agra Patena_, Waverley as _Bopatelawa_,
Craigellachie as _Puthu Road_, Malvern as _Partambasi_, Windsor Forest
as _Rajah Totam_, Duffus as _Pusila Tottam_, Forres as _Nugawattie_, &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 _Ulankanthai_, Wewelkellie 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 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 pleasant 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 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
enjoyment 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 inhabitants 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 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 resemblance 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 evermore 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 Cornwall,
where the ruins of King Arthur’s castle stand, on the summit of a
projecting crag rising from the sea, and connected with the mainland
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 unshapely
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 becoming 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, 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 disputes concerning these frontal
emblems, that as the same images are worshipped by both sects in the
same temples, ruinous lawsuits sometimes arise between the two factions
as to which mark shall be impressed on the images![207]
-----
Footnote 207:
See ‘In the Himalayas,’ pp. 23, 24. Chatto & Windus.
-----
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.[208]
-----
Footnote 208:
I scarcely like to compare words from Holy Scripture in this
connection, but there is a curious example of Oriental phraseology in
Isaiah lx. 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
place of MY Feet glorious.’
-----
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![209]
-----
Footnote 209:
At Anuradhapura two marks on the granite pavement of the Ruanwelli
Dagoba are pointed out as having been worn by the knees of the devout
king Bátiya-tissa, who reigned from 19 B.C. to A.D. 9.
-----
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 current superstition to forward the
propagation of their own tenets, and a chapel which they have erected on
the mountain is yearly frequented 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.[210]
-----
Footnote 210:
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 MARY, 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, with the highest devotion, is
preserved in 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 many 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 Exists at Rome,’ Hon. J. W. Percy, pp. 127, 128.
-----
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 Museum 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 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 archæologist, 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;[211] and among the very ancient sculptures
at the Sanchi Tope and elsewhere we find representations of Buddha’s
feet, on which are depicted the symbolic wheel and the _swastica_ (the
latter is a peculiar mark, something between a cross and a Greek fret).
-----
Footnote 211:
‘In the Himalayas,’ ‘The Sacred Wheel,’ pp. 430-434. Chatto & Windus.
-----
Hiouen-Thsiang also relates strange legends concerning the actual feet,
telling how, when 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 coffin, which rested on a funeral pyre of 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 sixty 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 Allegalla
Peak, another on a mountainous mass of red rock at Kurunegalla, and a
third (which is emphatically THE FOOTPRINT) 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-worshippers. 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
Allegalla, which is _only_ 4 feet 6 inches by 2 feet! Those on
Kurunegalla, 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 worshipped, especially in
China and Japan, there are cyclopean images of him far taller than
that.[212]
-----
Footnote 212:
See page 395.
-----
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 manufacture 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.[213]
-----
Footnote 213:
‘Wanderings in China.’ C. F. Gordon Cumming. Vol. i. p. 49.
-----
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 believe 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 different 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, 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 of 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 he has
appointed an angel to be the special guardian of the footstep impressed
by the foot of Ieû (_i.e._, 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 guided Adam, who brought her back to
live 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
marvellous to relate, all meet to worship side by side on the sacred
summit in peace and amity.
While the Mahommedans crowd here to do homage to the memory of Adam, the
Tamils[214] 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 was 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.
-----
Footnote 214:
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.
-----
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-absorbing 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, 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 irresistible
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 accomplished it.
Meanwhile, I found welcome in a lovely home nestling high on the face of
a mountain scarcely less beautiful than Adam’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 inhabitants of this district do
homage. I do not believe that it has any pretension to be a genuine
article, but it is a convenient representative 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.
[Illustration: ADAM’S PEAK, FROM MASKELYA.]
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 worshippers 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 difficulty, and
the luxurious travellers of these later days rushing on in their
ceaseless race against time.
About twenty miles to the north of Allegalla[215] 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.
-----
Footnote 215:
_Galla_ means rock. I had occasion to refer to these two crags in the
last chapter, but I trust my readers will excuse my recalling them in
this connection.
-----
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 Singhalese 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 annually 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,
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 I 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 planter 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.
When my friends found I was really bent on making the ascent, a little
band of stalwart planters soon arranged all details for a pilgrimage,
and a very pleasant one it proved. It was in the month of January, and
we were favoured with ideal weather and a faultlessly clear atmosphere.
Starting from Glen Tilt, in the Maskeliya district, we walked or rode as
far as ‘Forres,’[216] 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.
-----
Footnote 216:
To me a very familiar name, the town of Forres, in Morayshire, being
only three miles from Altyre, my birthplace.
-----
I 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 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 maidenhair
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 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 accomplishment 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
shout of praise, ‘Saädu! Saädu!’ 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. When 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[217] hurls itself on to the
boulders far below.
-----
Footnote 217:
_Ganga_ means river.
-----
In these chill waters the pilgrims must bathe, and so purify themselves
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. But 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:—
‘We 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 skirting the edge of dizzy precipices, at the base of
which foamed brawling torrents.
‘The way was often rendered dangerous by the roots of large trees,
which, having become slippery by the morning mist, stretched across the
narrow path, and one of these nearly cost me my life. 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 overhanging 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 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 are said to have been originally placed here by Alexander
the Great, whom the Mahommedans affirm to have climbed the pinnacle
about B.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 following century, tells how, in order to
facilitate the difficult and dangerous 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 conspicuous 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 constructed, 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.[218]
-----
Footnote 218:
I have 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 &
Windus.
-----
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 picturesque little
wooden temple, consisting merely of a light overhanging roof, supported
on slender columns, and open to every wind of heaven—such winds as would
carry it to the sea were it not for the strong iron chains passing over
it. Beneath this canopy lies 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.
Happily 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 on 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 Baldæus 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.
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 protection would be continued to all rites and
usages of the Buddhist religion.
When Hoffmeister made the ascent in 1844, he found the footprint
enclosed within a golden frame studded with gems of considerable 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 4-1/2 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 sixteenth
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 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 watch for the morning_.’[219]
-----
Footnote 219:
Bible version of Psalm cxxx. 6.
-----
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 ‘Saädu! Saädu!’ 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 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. Their 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 Buddhists, a very
peculiar shadow is sometimes 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.
‘By the light of a moon a little 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 which, in a deep black
shadow, extended the conical form of the 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
expanse 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.[220]
(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 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, dipping their hands in
the water thus sanctified, they wash their faces in symbolic
purification.
-----
Footnote 220:
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-Yama in Japan, which is simply a dormant crater, and others on
the summit and in the crater of Haleakala in the Sandwich Isles. See
‘Fire Fountains of Hawaii,’ vol. i. p. 264. Published by Blackwood.
-----
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 the 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 appeared 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 of twenty-five
Buddhas 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 B.C. 3000, and
found the Peak already known as Deiwakuta, ‘Peak of the God.’
The second Buddha 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 B.C. 1000, and then,
B.C. 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 THEE in THINE Infinity
These multiform and many-coloured creeds
Seem but the robe man wraps as masquer’s weeds
Round the one living truth THOU givest him—THEE?
What 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?
For ever rising in sublime increase
To ‘Glory in the Highest—on Earth peace.’
CHAPTER XXVI
THE TUG OF WAR—THE BATTLE OF DIVERSE CREEDS IN CEYLON
Nestorian Christians—St. Francis Xavier—Portuguese—Dutch—Table of
British Missionaries—Roman Catholic—American Mission—Need of a
Medical Mission for Women—Jaffna College—High-caste students—
Commencement of Wesleyan Mission—Its Mission to Burmah.
I doubt 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 extent 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 Hindoos,
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 Christian, who, writing in
the time of Justinian, tells that in Taprobane (which was the ancient
Greek name for Ceylon) there existed a community of Persian Christians,
tended by bishops, priests, and deacons, and having a regular liturgy.
These are understood to have been merchants attracted by commerce 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-West 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[221] 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 persecuting ruler embraced the Christian faith
and fled for protection to the mainland, to the court of the Christian
Viceroy of Goa.
-----
Footnote 221:
A.D. 1544.
-----
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 £6,000 per annum, the fishers simply
transferred their payment to the priests, by whom it 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 adjoining
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, _Johan Louis Perera_ Abeysekere
Goonewardene, &c.
Although the influence of Portuguese gold, the hope of official 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 oppressed, as
were also the native Roman Catholics, many of whom, 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, Baldæus, 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 numbers 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 external 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.
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 astrologers, 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 repealed 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 Portuguese 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 Dutch Church, so forcibly established, should have failed 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 basis 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 Lord Guildford)
not only took active measures for restoring 170 of the Dutch
village-schools all over the island, but also offered Government
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, increased 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.D. 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 population 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 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 Tamil catechist remained in charge of the whole
province of Jaffna, while priests from the Roman Catholic college at Goa
divided the field with the reinstated Brahmans.
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, ‘_Kulawa
denawa_,’ ‘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 presented
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. The Church
of England likewise sent chaplains to minister to the British
settlers.[222] 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
farther. 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 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.
-----
Footnote 222:
I may here quote Mr. Ferguson’s Chronological Table of Missions in
Ceylon:—
A.D. 1505. Portuguese visit Ceylon.
— 1544. Roman Catholicism first preached at Manaar.
— 1642. Dutch Presbyterian Ministry commenced.
— 1740. Arrival of Moravian Missionaries.
— 1804. Arrival of London Missionaries.
— 1812. Baptist Mission commenced.
— 1814. Wesleyan 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.
-----
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 towards 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 comparatively 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
parts.
The various Protestant sects do indeed seek to work in harmony, though,
of course, their differences must sorely perplex the heathen who is half
inclined to forsake his ancestral faith. But reckoning all together,
Episcopalians, Wesleyans, 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. The Roman
Catholics, who are content to acknowledge very nominal conversions,
reckon their co-religionists at upwards of 212,000 but a very large
number of these are Christians solely in name, descendants 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 fain 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 Buddhists
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 as a legitimate feature in the worship of ONE who has
revealed himself as ‘a jealous GOD,’ saying, ‘MY glory will I not give
to another, neither MY praise to graven images.’ Here, for instance, is
an account of the Midsummer pilgrimage 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 number 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. Yet the order
and quiet that reigned throughout the time the festival 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, _and especially in a place where water is
scarce_, was a source of edification to everyone. Nothing could be
more touching than to see the pious fervour with which the pilgrims,
_both Catholics and Hindoos, Buddhists and Moors_, 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 worshippers 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 with 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 few 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 books 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
satisfactory mission results have been obtained amongst the Tamils of
the Northern Province, Jaffna, as I have already stated, having long
been the headquarters 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 are too deeply engrossed
in a real war with dark idolatry to contend over small differences 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 difficult 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.
(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 incapacity
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 work and tended her last hours, added: ‘In hundreds of villages in
Ceylon and India there is just such a work 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
_sons_ will soon be brought to fall at the feet of their Redeemer.
‘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 Christ, 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 Great 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?’[223]
-----
Footnote 223:
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_s._ 6_d._, post free.
-----
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. Sometimes 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 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 two
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 such cases of confinement the women are held up in this
standing posture for days and nights until the child is born 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 Leitch 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 exhausted she
herself might be, she dared not leave the house, as all the relatives
would at once return, and pandemonium 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 tom 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 Dr. 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 1, 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 suffering
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 important 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 influence
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 their words are
the more certain to carry weight with their countrywomen, who invariably
receive them with respect, and acknowledge that only a strong conviction
of religious duty, combined with a remarkable love to their unknown
neighbours, could possibly have induced 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 afternoon 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 meetings 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[224] 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.
-----
Footnote 224:
‘To memorise’ is the expressive American abbreviation.
-----
In addition to this house-to-house visitation, these ten Bible-women
teach sewing to upward of 250 girls at twelve day-schools; they also
teach in the Sunday-schools, and otherwise make themselves useful in
arranging women’s meetings.
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
consequence 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 difficulty
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 communicants
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 supervision
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. Each 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 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 multiplication 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 commence 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 are 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_l._—a large sum in a land where the wage of a
labourer is but 6_d._ a day. This nest-egg was supplemented by 6,000_l._
from America, and in 1872 the college was started under the 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 of the three Christian
regiments which work in that province in such admirable brotherly union,
namely, the CHURCH OF ENGLAND MISSION, and the AMERICAN and WESLEYAN
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,[225] 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.
-----
Footnote 225:
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 too 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 sufficiently
courteous recognition to heathen customs, that the strong words of
Bishop Copleston 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 outrage on the majesty and love
of the One True God, 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 THERE IS SUCH A THING AS A SOUND AND TRULY
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE, WHICH IS NOT TOLERANT OF AFFRONTS TO OUR GOD;
WHICH WILL NOT TREAT AS ONE AMONG MANY FORMS OF RELIGION THE WORSHIP
OF IDOLS AND THE DENIAL OF OUR LORD.... Our heathen neighbours will
have reason to thank us in the end, and in the meantime will respect
us, if we are determined both to speak and act the truth in love.’
-----
This college takes no grant-in-aid from Government, and until June 1891
it was not affiliated to any university,[226] as experience proves that
students who are working for passes grudge the time bestowed on Biblical
study, which does not count in their examinations. 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.
-----
Footnote 226:
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 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 provided by the
State simply destroys Hindooism; it gives nothing in its place. It is
founded on the benevolent principle of non-interference with religion,
but in practice it is the negation of God in life. Education must
destroy idolatry, and the State 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, who
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 themselves
Christians, but after a course of two or three years in totally heathen
and grossly immoral surroundings, they invariably returned either 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_l._ was required for its immediate extension, and it is
delightful to know that this has been almost raised by the efforts of
the two sisters of whom I have already spoken, and who came to 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 connected
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 available; 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 Iona 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
(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 £1 10_s._ to begin with, and no prospect of
ever rising above £4 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 working in Ahmednugger on a salary of £4 a month, was
offered £10 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 providing
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 special care of the Christian students in
the College, who there built a school, and 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.[227]
-----
Footnote 227:
In looking over missionary subscription lists, I see that several
sensible men have sent considerable sums under the very suggestive
heading of ‘SAVED FROM SMOKE.’ 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 every household, the
lords of creation should expend on this item of self-indulgence a sum
which, were it devoted to missionary purposes, would entitle that
family to rank high among contributors to the good cause?
-----
The Blue Ribbon Army are also doing good work, and have successfully
established brotherhoods at Jaffna, Galle, and Kandy.
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, notwithstanding 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 patiently borne.
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 Wheel, 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 station of this denomination_. Its commencement was so
strongly advocated by Dr. 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 missionaries,
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 _viâ_ 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, wife 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 Molesworth, Commandant of Galle, where they
finally arrived on June 29, 1814, having left Bombay nine days
previously.
The Dutch Church being virtually dead, there was at that time no other
mission of the Reformed Church 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, establishing 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 missionaries
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 was sown in 1818, when a piece of
land on the seaside was rented for the equivalent of 9_d._ a year, and
thereon was commenced a school attended by twelve boys.
In 1819 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 simpler 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 to the natives as
Puliantivu, and the other at Kalmunai. The latter, however, seems as yet
to have afforded comparatively small encouragement; 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 frequently 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 eventually become Christians attribute their conversion
to teaching received in the schools, which they had ignored at the time,
but which, like 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 Christianity, 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 patience,’ 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. To provide such Christian teachers, and also local
preachers to keep up a constant series of services for the heathen in
all the villages, the Wesleyan Mission has established 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 Mulla (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 De Zylva preached was a better 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 begun 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 purely 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 foreheads 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 may be 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 Wesleyan educational work in the Southern Province, there
are two important training colleges, namely, the Richmond College at
Galle, 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
Mission owns a valuable printing establishment. It has also established
a mission to seamen, which provides for visiting the ships in harbour
and inviting the sailors to special Sunday services. Comparatively few,
however, are able to come ashore, as merchant vessels in harbour
recognise no day of rest, and the hot, noisy toil of discharging and
receiving cargo goes on night and day without intermission, Sunday and
week-day alike.[228]
-----
Footnote 228:
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 prove in other ports!
-----
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,[229] the people of about 800
villages are sunk in the most degrading ignorance and superstition.
-----
Footnote 229:
Page 331.
-----
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 European clergy, with about 200 native assistants of all
sorts. The total number of Church members does not exceed 4,000, but the
regular attendance at school and public 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, accompanied 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 personal 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 had 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 quarters 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
wonder at that; it is such a very wide-spreading organisation. I hope
you like the system of our Schools, and especially of our Industrial
and Night Schools, where so many rough lads and wild hoydens are
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 CEYLON
Salvation Army—Work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel—
Work of the Church Missionary Society—Cyclone in 1884—Work in Pallai
and the Wannie—Converts 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[230] 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 confusion 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.
-----
Footnote 230:
I regret that lack of space compels me to omit all details of the
Presbyterian and Baptist Missions. The latter numbers about 6,000
adherents, of whom 550 are communicants. The former has 2,500
adherents, of whom about 1,000 are communicants.
-----
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.
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 1, 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 (_i.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 briefly glance at the work of the two great Societies whose
representatives have striven so earnestly to build up this Church.
The CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY began work here in 1818. THE SOCIETY FOR
THE PROPAGATION OF THE 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 (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 to 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.[231]
-----
Footnote 231:
For details of this college see Chapter ii.
-----
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.[232] 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 light thus early kindled.
-----
Footnote 232:
See p. 430.
-----
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 the extreme south.
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 neighbourhood. 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 1884 (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 congregation at
Nellore had increased to eighty, a new station was opened at Kopay in
the immediate neighbourhood, and an old Portuguese Church at
Chundicully, 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 fairly
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 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,[233] torn up by the roots. About 120,000 plantain and
banana bushes were ruined. Even the trees that survived 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.
-----
Footnote 233:
_Thespesia populnea_, formerly called _Hybiscus_.
-----
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 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 Missionary
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 Pallai.
The latter is only about twenty miles from Jaffna, a sandy tract of
cocoa-nut plantations and malarious fever-haunted jungle. So unhealthy
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’ 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.[234]
-----
Footnote 234:
For astounding details of sorcery and criminal preparation of charms
by a native doctor, see Emerson Tennant’s ‘Ceylon,’ vol. ii. pp.
544-548.
-----
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, however, 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 connection 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 1888-1889 no
less than 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 Wannie 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 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 disappears.
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
established, 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 are; in fact, in the year when extreme poverty 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 purgatory, 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.[235]
-----
Footnote 235:
In ‘The Himalayas and Indian Plains’ I have given full details of the
requirements of _Ancestral 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 vast Empire.
-----
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 sometimes 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 Zacchæus. Next time he
visited the temple and presented his accustomed 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 persuaded his
wife, and so the leaven of good has spread.
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 Vayrakiam (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 disciples—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 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
Kandaswami, 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.
Such 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 acknowledged 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 exponents 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
1,000l. 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 numerous
are the estates, that each 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 plantations 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 work, 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.
Small 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 multiplicity 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 privileges 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 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 congregation 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, the 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 own 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
overseers, 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 antagonistic 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 _Kanganis_, a change in the
management of the estates has led to their being all replaced by
heathens—a very grievous matter for the little band of converts whose
taskmasters they are.
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 baptism, 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 really _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 contemptuously 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[236]), 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.
-----
Footnote 236:
Jer. xxxviii. 7, 8; and Jer. xxxix. 6, 7, and 16-18.
-----
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 walked thirty miles 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—imperceptibly—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 embrace 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 congregation 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. The singer said he had learnt the lyric from
hearing it sung by a Roman Catholic 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 mythological 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 little incense—such an
incident suggests a picture of wondrous interest.
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 KANDYAN 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
robe and prepare for the Buddhist priesthood.
The contemplative life, however, sometimes results in a more absolute
conversion, as in the case of a lad who had for four years 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 continued in the service of the temple with an ever-reproachful
conscience.
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 confirmed, 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 years 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 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, unfortunately,
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.[237]
-----
Footnote 237:
Taking Theosophy even at its best, as now preached in Europe, an
unbiassed student of its teaching writes: ‘There is no note which
vibrates more constantly in the soul of every true man than the
prayer, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!”... To that heartfelt cry I
do not find any answer in Theosophy. I find, on the contrary, an
almost exultant assertion that GOD is not a Being with a Father’s
heart, that for sin there is no expiation, and for the sinner no
forgiveness.’
-----
I think the European disciples of these schools 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 Buddhist 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 influence opened a rival school, and
pronounced a very singular form of excommunication against all who
should persist in sending their children 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 perform 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 have escaped from this debased
system are proof against all arguments of the Theosophists. Colonel
Olcott did his utmost to persuade a Buddhist priest who had become a
Christian to resume the yellow robe. When he had exhausted 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 1886 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 LIGHT OF THE WORLD. The honoured 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 philosophy 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 SHALL 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.[238]
-----
Footnote 238:
Jesus says, ‘He that hath the SON HATH LIFE. He that hath not the SON
OF GOD HATH NOT LIFE. I am come that they might have Life, and that
they might have it abundantly. Where I am there shall also My servant
be.’
-----
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 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 the Divine Gift of Life, for it was not his to
bestow.[239] 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 undesirable individual existence, in
other words, to Nirvana, _i.e._, 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.
-----
Footnote 239:
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 ... immortality, He giveth Eternal Life.’ ‘To him
that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in
the midst of the Paradise of God.‘ ‘THIS IS LIFE ETERNAL, that they
may know Thee, the Only True God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast
sent.’
-----
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 us. But for the
Buddhist there is no such companionship, only lonely striving after a
perfection unattainable to the weakness of unhelped 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 existence,
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 perfection
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 God), 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 perpetual charm.
You can never say it often enough; so go on and on all your life. If you
could be 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 existence.
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 Wesleyans, and the Baptists 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, Kandy.
Such 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
renunciation 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[240] 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 clergy.
-----
Footnote 240:
Page 108.
-----
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
Buddhists. This extension of girls’ schools is deemed 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 influence 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 immeasurable
superior of all of lower degree.
The Church Missionary Society did not commence work in Colombo 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.
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 community. 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 Baddigama, 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. Yet even in these the people seem
quite willing to listen, and many profess 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 low-country
villages the Bana Maduwa (Buddhist preaching-place) was offered to the
Mission by the village headmen, to be converted into a Christian school;
and when this was declined because it adjoined the _pansala_, _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 Galle, 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-reaching 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; therefore, it is
surely the plain duty of English Christians to rouse themselves 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 SINGLE 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 understanding 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 Gospel-net in waters teeming with life? Assuredly in no
other career will they find so true a spring of joy and gladness for
their own lives as in this ceaseless effort to draw all around them to
the knowledge and love of their Saviour.
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 plains. 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 everlasting gladness
as all the fleeting honours of earth fail to secure.
INDEX
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
_Amherstia nobilis_, 38
Ancestral worship great hindrance to conversion, 587
Ant-eater and ant-lion, 337
Ants, red and black, 44, 82
— white, 43-45, 337;
eat dead 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 _integrifolia_, 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, 86;
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
Batticaloa, 362, 426;
derivation of, 363;
the harbour-bar, 428
Batticotta College for Tamils, 565-570
Bears, 357, 459
_Bêche de mer_, 95, 397
Bees, 151
Belligama, sand village, 443
Bentota, 466;
oysters, 468
Betel-chewing, 31, 32, 95
Bhuwaneka Bahu IV., King, 499
Bible-women, 562
Bintenne, 372
Birds’ nests, edible, 95, 397
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;
Peradeniya, 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, 58, 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;
cosmology, 67;
fighting priest, 72;
reverence for animal life, 157 _n._;
heavens, 296;
stone railing, 297
Buffaloes, 109, 351, 353, 357, 359, 360, 402, 459
Bulan-kulum, 258
Bungalow, 41;
temporary, 184, 334, 380, 402;
beside a lake, 476;
on Allegalla Peak, 500
Buona Vista Orphanage, 430
Burning forest, 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
Cashew nuts, 96
Cassia, 49
— bark, 300
_Cassia fistula_, 299
Caste, 366;
persecutions, 366-369;
prejudices, 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, 168, 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
Chrysoberyl, 321
Chunam, 41, 277
Cinchona plantations, 515, 516
Cinnamon, gardens of, 37, 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, 441 _n._
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 remedies, 301
Cock, red, sacrifice, 199
Cocoa plantation, life on a, 359, 369. _See_ Palm, Cocoa
Coffee, fields, 327, 340;
stores as churches, &c., 340;
thieves, 493;
disease, 507;
history of, 507-510
Coffin, 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._;
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, 110
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;
longevity of, 403;
skin, 404
Crops, two, annually, 110, 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;
Miriswetiya, 269, 276;
Abhayagiria, 270, 273, 276;
Thuparama, 271, 273;
Lankarama, 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 _n._;
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 fastuosa_, 301
Dawson, Captain, monument to, 122
Days of the week, 219
De and Don, Portuguese prefixes, 490
Deaths, falling from trees, 418, 419;
accidental, 492
Decoration, church, 142
Delada-Maligawa, at Kandy, 174, 201, 206, 221;
at Anuradhapura, 271;
at Pollonarua, 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, how to deceive, 198
Devotion, legendary acts of, 201
Dewenipiatissa, King, 252, 273, 289, 303, 305
Dhatu-Sena and Mahanamo, 250, 260
Dhobie, village laundryman, 380;
prepares 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 characteristics 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, 350, 357, 359;
a midnight adventure with an, 460, 461;
charmer, professional, 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, murders 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 Observer,’ 52
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 village 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 drawing, 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 Nuwara Eliya, 141, 142, 144
Flying fish, 424, 429
— foxes, 192, 400
— squirrels, 192
Foliage, brilliant, 12, 86, 132
Footprints, legendary, 523;
Christian, 525;
on Allegalla, 532;
on Adam’s Peak, 540, 541
Forest Department, 344
Forres, 534
Fort Austenburg, 406
Fort Frederick, 407, 411
Frescoes, in rock-temple of Dambulla, 242;
at Sigiri, 247
Frogs, 38;
embedded in stone, 68 _n._;
green, 400
Fruit, varieties of, 28;
tropical, cool when first gathered, 307
Fungi, brilliant, 326
Galgé, 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
Gemming, 149
Gems, the gem notary, 315;
gems and gem pits, 315-324;
legislation concerning, 323
Giant’s canal, 258, 264
Giant’s tank, 251
Gigantic bean, 89, 401
— images, 395
_Gloriosa superba_, 470, 479
Glow-worm, 315
Goats, long-legged, 294
Gobbs, 74
Gogerly, the Rev, J., 204
Goldsmith’s curse, 182
Gordon, Sir Arthur Hamilton, as governor, 258-260
Gordon Cumming, John, 1st 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 submarine animals, 432;
prevalence of, in birds and butterflies, 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
Haldummulla, 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 _n._
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, 540, 541, 542
— Girdle, 231
Holy oil, how obtained, 228
— places in the forest, 398, 400
— teeth, a complete set, 226
— Tooth, 206-235;
burnt, 222;
manufactured, 222, 223, 225
— Trousers, 237
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
Ibn Batuta, 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 Peradeniya, 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, 244, 309;
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, Missions at, 554;
the Tamil College, 565-570;
the Iona 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, 111
Jymkana, 143
Kaasyapa, the parricide, 246, 285
Kabragoya, 80, 431
Kaduganawa, 500
— Pass, 111, 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 approach, 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
_Kapuas_ (devil-dancers), 183, 196, 199, 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 boats, 57;
temple, 58;
an inland town B., 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
Kumara Pokuna, 394
Kurukkan (grain), 255, 262
Kurunegalla, 241, 402, 497
Kushta, Rajah, 443, 444
Kutara Daas, king and poet, 445
Kuttam Pokuna, 303
‘Lagerstrœmia regina,’ 114
Lagoons, 38;
how formed, 39, 74, 363;
salt formations in, 456
Lajji-tissa, King, 276
Lake Gregory, 139
Lakes, artificial, 38, 39, 250
Langdon, the Rev. Samuel, 330, 331, 577
Lanka, 288, 384, 449
— Dwipa, the Happy 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 chetahs in Ceylon. _See_ Chetahs
Leper King, 443, 444;
hospital, 444
Lettuce-tree, 38
Lighthouses, 448
Lilies, water, 82, 298;
white (virgin), 403, 421, 471;
the _Gloriosa superba_, climbing lily, 470
Litigation, prevalent among the Singhalese, 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
Madoolseme, 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, 111
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 convolvulus, 80, 90, 421, 471
Masks, hideous, 183
Matale, 238, 239
Matara, 412, 445, 451
Mavalipuram submerged, 451
_Memecylon 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;
offerings of, 91, 291, 387
Millepedes, 194
_Mimosa pudica_, 301
— _sensitiva_, 190
Minery Lake, 251, 252, 384
Minery village, 398
Miracle plays at Chilaw, 101
Mission, native, 574;
Happy Valley, 577;
Tamil coolie, 589;
Kandyan Itinerancy, 595
Missionary detraction, 578
Missions, chronological table, 554;
summary of, 555;
American, commenced, 557;
Wesleyan, 571;
Native, to Burmah, 578;
Baptist and Presbyterian, 579 _n._;
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 graven on rock, 310
Mongoose, 75, 95;
antipathy to cobra, 76 _n._
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
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
Nipple 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, busy, 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 _n._:
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-birds, 90
Padivil tank, 251
Pali, 204
Pallagolla, 130
Pallai, 584, 585
Palm, Areca, 23;
blossoms of, 96;
characteristics of, 115
— _Coco de mer_, 189
— Cocoa, 23, 434;
at high elevations, 86;
with several heads, 107;
its cultivation encouraged by foreigners, 264, 433, 434;
life on a plantation, 359, 369, 426, 427;
oil and other industries connected with the cocoa palm, 435, 436;
the manufacture of toddy and arrack, 436-439;
legitimate uses of the cocoa palm, 440-442
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, 181
Pandanus, 79
Panduka-abaya, 303
Pansala schools, 63, 296, 330
Panther, 168
Pantura or Panadura, 475
Papaw, 120
Paradise in Ceylon, 520
Parangi or Karayo, 258, 262, 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 regulation 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, 213, 217;
dates of the feast, 213;
at Ratnapura, 313;
at Dondra, 447
Periyakulam, 415
Perjury rampant, 486, 487
Pettah, 26-28
Phosphorescence, 20, 21, 94, 423-425
Pidaru-tala-galla, 139, 144
Pigeons, 152, 459, 467
Pig-sticking, 360
Pilgrimages, government regulation of, 464
Pilgrims, aged, 533, 535
Ping-chattie (water-jar), 468-470
Pioneer corps, 125
Plains, Horton, 134;
Totapella, 135;
Elk, 136;
Agra, _ib._;
Moonstone, _ib._;
Maturata, 136, 145;
Kondapallé, 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 Buddhist, 272;
Tamil, 261, 422
Pleurisy, 585
Plumbago, 324, 325
_Plumeria acutifolia_, 61
_Poinciana regia_, 38
Pokuna, Kumara, 394
— Kuttam, 303
Police work, 477-496
Pollonarua, 284, 285;
derivation of name, 293;
as a city, 383
Polyandry, 450 _n._
Porcupine, 171, 359-361, 394, 459;
its ravages on tea-plants, 513
Portuguese, their invasion of Ceylon, 550;
names, _ib._;
present condition, 604
Potato-tree, 132, 335
Pottery, offerings of red, 400
Prakrama Bahu, 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, 101;
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
Quarries, 277
Quinine, as a cure for opium crave, 516
Races, diversity of, 14, 15, 85
Ragalla, 145
Rag offerings, 546
Railway, Colombo to Gampola, 110, 111
Rainbow, rose-coloured, 327
Rain charms, 387, 392
Rajah Battiyattissa, 306
Rajah-kariya, 6, 124, 173;
abolished, 253
Rajah Singha, 206
Rama, Prince of Oude and Ravana, 134, 449, 531
Ramayana, poem, 531
Rambutan, 28
Ratnapura, 311
Rat-snakes, 41, 129, 313
Rats, 41, 152, 171
Ravana, the demon king, 134, 449, 531
Razors, cheap, 520
Red-deer, 169, 459
Red rain, 445 _n._
‘Red thread’ to keep 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 à Becket, _ib._;
Father Arrowsmith’s hand, _ib._;
arm of St. Augustine, 229;
the True Cross, _ib._;
toe-nails of St. Peter, 230;
corpse of the Bishop of Ischia, _ib._;
Sainte Ceinture, 231
Relics, recently discovered Buddhistic, 67-69;
several religious relics, 233-237
Religions, amalgamated, 58, 196, 211, 341-343
Religious conflicts, Roman Catholic, 71, 101
— intolerance, 566 _n._
— 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 Luna-Oya, 82, 86, 102;
the Dedroo-Oya, 89;
the Moondalani, 90;
Puna-Ella and Garunda-Ella, 130;
Sita-Ella, 134;
Nanuoya, 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 Manick-Ganga, 321, 465;
the Kataragama, 465;
the Belihul-Oya, 327;
the Welawe-Ganga, _ib._;
the Magama, 334;
the Dambera-Oya, 347;
Nattoor, 375;
Gindura, 430;
Nilwalla-Ganga, 442, 445;
Kumukkan, formerly called Kombookgam, 459;
Alutgama, 466, 474;
Sita-Ganga, 536
Road bungalows, 312
Roads, 475
Robert de Nobili, 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-Galla, 176;
Alu-Vihara, 239;
Dambulla, 240;
Isurumuniya, 295, 528;
Ella Pass, 335;
Mulgirigalla, 454
Rodiya 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
Rugam 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
Sapphires, 316-318
Satin-wood bridge, 120
‘Saved from smoke,’ 570
Schools, Wesleyan Industrial, at Colombo, 10
Scorpions, 443
Scotchmen, colonies of, 534
Screw-pine, 79
Seas of Prakrama, 252, 384
Seeds, varieties of, carried by rivers, 89;
as water purifiers, 90, 382
Sensitive plant, 190
Serendib, 423
Serfdom on temple lands, 64;
abolished, 253
Serpent bites, remedies for, 300, 301
— worship, 292, 293
Serpents, precautions against, 42;
tradition 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
Shrine, of St. Anna, 102;
of the Tooth, 206
Sigiri, fortress of, 245, 285;
rock frescoes at, 247
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 of Kandy, 122
— Major, the roadmaker, 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 Cruelty to Animals, 495
— for the propagation of the Gospel, 605
Southernmost known land, 448
Soysa, Charles de, 55, 103
Spice-laden breezes, 13, 25
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
Suffrein, Admiral, 412
Sula-Wansae, or Lesser Dynasty, 283
Sun-birds, 414
Sunday-labour at Hong Kong, repressive regulations, 577 _n._
Sunwise turns (circles) by Pilgrims, 286, 287, 292, 314, 539
Suriya-trees, 33
Suriya-Wansae, or Solar Dynasty, 33
Tailor-bird, 195
Talavillu, 101
Talipot-leaf (palm of palms), 116-118
Talla-goya lizard, 81
Tamankaduwa 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 Batticaloa, 256, 362;
restoration around Pollonarua, 386
Tea, in 1660 and 1890, 2 _n._;
‘golden tips,’ 5 _n._;
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 Emerson, 119, 250, 251, 393
Theosophy, 597
_Thespesia populnea_, 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
Toparé (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 _n._
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
Umbrellas, honorific, 116 _n._, 210, 212, 216, 268, 314;
low caste persecuted for carrying umbrellas, 366, 368
Uva, 135, 330, 333, 511
Vavuniya-vilan-kulam 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
Vendeloos Bay, 375
Venomous creatures, 82
Vicarton Gorge, 238
Vidyodaya College, 66, 67, 69
Vigita-pura, 264, 265
Village hospitals, 6
Violets, 136
Votive offerings at Kattaragama, &c., 464 _n._
Wakwella, 432
Walagam-bahu, King, 239, 270
Wanderoo monkeys, 78, 87, 171
Wanna Rajah 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
Wata Dágé, 390, 391
Watch huts, 397
Water, purified by seeds, 90, 382;
ceremony of cutting the, 217;
scarcity of, 255, 256;
impurities of, 381
Water-cress, 130
Water-jars, meritorious, 468-470
Water-lilies, 82
Water-spouts, 40
Weaver-bird, 195
Wedding procession, 84
‘Weight in gold,’ 244, 392
Welligama, 443, 444
Wellington, the Duke of, at Trincomalee, 413
Wesleyan Mission commenced, 571
Wheel, as an emblem, 571
White cloth, the honours of the, 184, 209, 215, 314, 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
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., 325
Zebu, 26
Zenanas, 560
Zircon, 320
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LONDON
WORKS BY C. F. GORDON CUMMING.
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is the cheeriest of wayfarers.’—PALL MALL GAZETTE.
‘Miss Gordon Cumming’s books are always worth reading. Many
illustrations, those of the great Snowy Range being specially good, give
an extra charm to the book.’—MANCHESTER EXAMINER.
London: CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly.
IV.
VIA CORNWALL TO EGYPT.
‘Miss Cumming is an author whose books of travel are always sure of a
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pleasure.... The whole volume is a happy combination of instruction and
interesting reading.’—CHRISTIAN WORLD.
‘Thanks to Miss Cumming’s very considerable powers of word-painting the
reader may while away a pleasant hour with her in the alternation of
lively chat with glowing reminiscences.’—ATHENÆUM.
‘Pleasant and profitable reading. There is unexcelled originality and
piquancy in Miss Cumming’s eloquent yet simple style. Her present book
cannot but gratify everyone.’—WHITEHALL REVIEW.
London: CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly.
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AT HOME IN FIJI
(INCLUDING THE VOLCANIC DISTRICT OF NEW ZEALAND).
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MAN-OF-WAR.
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‘We are transported, by a series of vivid pictures of easy lives and
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The brightness that made Miss Gordon Cumming a universally welcome guest
is reflected in every one of her chapters; and her style is as fresh and
clear as it is simple and unaffected.’—SATURDAY REVIEW.
‘Another delightful book.’—ATHENÆUM.
‘It is impossible to give extracts which will convey an idea of the
loveliness of the scenery of these isles. The volume must be read to
accomplish this.’—ACADEMY.
‘Her readers owe her nothing but thanks for having given them yet
another glimpse of perhaps the most attractive region of the whole
world.’—PALL MALL GAZETTE.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, London and Edinburgh.
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THE KINGDOM OF HAWAII: ITS VOLCANOES, AND THE HISTORY
OF ITS MISSIONS.
With Map and numerous Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo. 25_s._
‘Miss Gordon Cumming, who has painted such a life-like picture of Fiji,
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History, customs, laws, and scenery of the islands all come into view in
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‘With pen and with pencil Miss Cumming describes what she sees well and
graphically; and we have read nothing heretofore about these great open
volcanic displays that brought their main features so vividly before the
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contribution to descriptive literature that it is worthy of her
reputation.’—GLOBE.
‘As fascinating as any of her former works.’—WHITEHALL REVIEW.
‘In these pages we live a vivid, real life in California, piloted
delightfully through the mysteries that throng a new country—new, at any
rate, to the civilisation of the present century.’—SUNDAY TIMES.
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and the glories of the wondrous valley which the public spirit of the
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“actualities” in China, and most readable and entertaining from
beginning to end.’—CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.
‘We can safely say that she saw more of China and the Chinese than any
recent traveller who has taken the public into his confidence. And not
only so, but she has thoroughly appreciated what she saw, and by the aid
of a graphic pen has given us an excellent book on the country and
people.’—ACADEMY.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, London and Edinburgh.
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=BY MRS. ALEXANDER.=
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Babylon.
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In all Shades.
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=BY FRANK BARRETT.=
A Recoiling Vengeance.
For Love and Honour.
John Ford; and His Helpmate.
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A Prodigal’s Progress.
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Lieutenant Barnabas.
Found Guilty.
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Love Me for Ever.
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Deceivers Ever.
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For the Love of a Lass.
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Paul Ferroll.
Why Paul Ferroll Killed his Wife.
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The Cure of Souls.
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The Bar Sinister.
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Armadale.
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No Name.
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Antonina.
Basil.
Hide and Seek.
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Queen of Hearts.
My Miscellanies.
The Woman in White.
The Moonstone.
Man and Wife.
Poor Miss Finch.
Miss or Mrs.?
The New Magdalen.
The Frozen Deep.
The Law and the Lady.
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The Haunted Hotel.
The Fallen Leaves.
Jezebel’s Daughter.
The Black Robe.
Heart and Science.
‘I Say No.’
The Evil Genius.
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Frances.
The Village Comedy.
You Play Me False.
Blacksmith and Scholar.
=BY M. J. COLQUHOUN.=
Every Inch a Soldier.
=BY DUTTON COOK.=
Leo.
Paul Foster’s Daughter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
=BY C. EGBERT CRADDOCK.=
The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains.
=BY B. M. CROKER.=
Pretty Miss Neville.
Proper Pride.
A Bird of Passage.
Diana Barrington.
=BY WILLIAM CYPLES.=
Hearts of Gold.
BY ALPHONSE DAUDET.
The Evangelist.
=BY JAMES DE MILLE.=
A Castle in Spain.
=BY J. LEITH DERWENT.=
Our Lady of Tears.
Circe’s Lovers.
=BY CHARLES DICKENS.=
Sketches by Boz.
The Pickwick Papers.
Oliver Twist.
Nicholas Nickleby.
=BY DICK DONOVAN.=
The Man-hunter.
Caught at Last!
Tracked and Taken.
Who Poisoned Hetty Duncan?
The Man from Manchester.
A Detective’s Triumphs.
In the Grip of the Law.
Wanted!
From Information Received.
=BY MRS. ANNIE EDWARDES.=
A Point of Honour.
Archie Lovell.
=BY M. BETHAM-EDWARDS.=
Felicia.
Kitty.
=BY EDWARD EGGLESTON.=
Roxy.
=BY PERCY FITZGERALD.=
Bella Donna.
Polly.
The Second Mrs. Tillotson.
Seventy-five Brooke Street.
Never Forgotten.
The Lady of Brantome.
Fatal Zero.
=BY PERCY FITZGERALD AND
OTHERS.=
Strange Secrets.
=BY ALBANY DE FONBLANQUE.=
Filthy Lucre.
=BY R. E. FRANCILLON.=
Olympia.
One by One.
Queen Cophetua.
A Real Queen.
King or Knave.
Romances of the Law.
=BY HAROLD FREDERIC.=
Seth’s Brother’s Wife.
The Lawton Girl.
=PREFACED BY
SIR H. BARTLE FRERE.=
Pandurang Hari.
=BY HAIN FRISWELL.=
One of Two.
=BY EDWARD GARRETT.=
The Capel Girls.
=BY CHARLES GIBBON.=
Robin Gray.
For Lack of Gold.
What will the World Say?
In Honour Bound.
In Love and War.
For the King.
Queen of the Meadow.
In Pastures Green.
The Flower of the Forest.
A Heart’s Problem.
The Braes of Yarrow.
The Golden Shaft.
Of High Degree.
The Dead Heart.
By Mead and Stream.
Heart’s Delight.
Fancy Free.
Loving a Dream.
A Hard Knot.
Blood-Money.
=BY WILLIAM GILBERT.=
James Duke.
Dr. Austin’s Guests.
The Wizard of the Mountain.
=BY ERNEST GLANVILLE.=
The Lost Heiress.
=BY REV. S. BARING GOULD.=
Eve.
Red Spider.
=BY HENRY GREVILLE.=
A Noble Woman.
Nikanor.
=BY JOHN HABBERTON.=
Brueton’s Bayou.
Country Luck.
=BY ANDREW HALLIDAY.=
Every-Day Papers.
=BY LADY DUFFUS HARDY.=
Paul Wynter’s Sacrifice.
=BY THOMAS HARDY.=
Under the Greenwood Tree.
=BY BRET HARTE.=
An Heiress of Red Dog.
The Luck of Roaring Camp.
Californian Stories.
Gabriel Conroy.
Flip.
Maruja.
A Phyllis of the Sierras.
=BY J. BERWICK HARWOOD.=
The Tenth Earl.
=BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE.=
Garth.
Ellice Quentin.
Sebastian Strome.
Dust.
Fortune’s Fool.
Beatrix Randolph.
Miss Cadogna.
Love—or a Name.
David Poindexter’s Disappearance.
The Spectre of the Camera.
=BY SIR ARTHUR HELPS.=
Ivan de Biron.
=BY HENRY HERMAN.=
A Leading Lady.
=BY MRS. CASHEL HOEY.=
The Lover’s Creed.
=BY MRS. GEORGE HOOPER.=
The House of Raby.
=BY TIGHE HOPKINS.=
’Twixt Love and Duty.
=BY MRS. HUNGERFORD, AUTHOR OF ‘MOLLY
BAWN.’=
In Durance Vile.
A Maiden all Forlorn.
A Mental Struggle.
Marvel.
A Modern Circe.
=BY MRS. ALFRED HUNT.=
Thornicroft’s Model.
The Leaden Casket.
Self-Condemned.
That Other Person.
=BY JEAN INGELOW.=
Fated to be Free.
=BY HARRIETT JAY.=
The Dark Colleen.
The Queen of Connaught.
=BY MARK KERSHAW.=
Colonial Facts and Fictions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
=BY R. ASHE KING.=
A Drawn Game.
‘The Wearing of the Green.’
Passion’s Slave.
Bell Barry.
=BY JOHN LEYS.=
The Lindsays.
=BY E. LYNN LINTON.=
Patricia Kemball.
The Atonement of Leam Dundas.
The World Well Lost.
Under which Lord?
With a Silken Thread.
The Rebel of the Family.
‘My Love!’
Ione.
Paston Carew.
Sowing the Wind.
=BY HENRY W. LUCY.=
Gideon Fleyce.
=BY JUSTIN McCARTHY.=
Dear Lady Disdain.
The Waterdale Neighbours.
My Enemy’s Daughter.
A Fair Saxon.
Linley Rochford.
Miss Misanthrope.
Donna Quixote.
The Comet of a Season.
Maid of Athens.
Camiola.
=BY MRS. MACDONELL.=
Quaker Cousins.
=BY KATHARINE S. MACQUOID.=
The Evil Eye.
Lost Rose.
=BY W. H. MALLOCK.=
The New Republic.
=BY FLORENCE MARRYAT.=
Fighting the Air.
Written in Fire.
A Harvest of Wild Oats.
Open! Sesame!
=BY J. MASTERMAN.=
Half-a-dozen Daughters.
=BY BRANDER MATTHEWS.=
A Secret of the Sea.
=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.=
Stories Weird and Wonderful.
The Dead Man’s Secret.
=BY D. CHRISTIE MURRAY.=
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Joseph’s Coat.
Val Strange.
A Model Father.
Coals of Fire.
Hearts.
By the Gate of the Sea.
The Way of the World.
A Bit of Human Nature.
First Person Singular.
Cynic Fortune.
Old Blazer’s Hero.
=BY D. CHRISTIE MURRAY AND HENRY HERMAN.=
One Traveller Returns.
Paul Jones’s Alias.
The Bishops’ Bible.
=BY HENRY MURRAY.=
A Game of Bluff.
=BY ALICE O’HANLON.=
The Unforeseen.
Chance? or Fate?
=BY GEORGES OHNET.=
Doctor Rameau.
A Last Love.
A Weird Gift
=BY MRS. OLIPHANT.=
Whiteladies.
The Primrose Path.
The Greatest Heiress in England.
=BY MRS. ROBERT O’REILLY.=
Phœbe’s Fortunes.
=BY OUIDA.=
Held in Bondage.
Strathmore.
Chandos.
Under Two Flags.
Idalia.
Cecil Castlemaine’s Gage.
Tricotrin.
Puck.
Folle Farine.
A Dog of Flanders.
Pascarèl.
Signa.
In a Winter City.
Ariadnê.
Moths.
=BY OUIDA=—_continued._
Friendship.
Pipistrello.
Bimbi.
In Maremma.
Wanda.
Frescoes.
Princess Napraxine.
Two Little Wooden Shoes.
A Village Commune.
Othmar.
Guilderoy.
Ruffino.
Syrlin.
Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos.
=BY MARGARET AGNES PAUL.=
Gentle and Simple.
=BY JAMES PAYN.=
Lost Sir Massingberd.
A Perfect Treasure.
Bentinck’s Tutor.
Murphy’s Master.
A County Family.
At Her Mercy.
A Woman’s Vengeance.
Cecil’s Tryst.
The Clyffards of Clyffe.
The Family Scapegrace.
The Foster Brothers.
The Best of Husbands.
Found Dead.
Walter’s Word.
Halves.
Fallen Fortunes.
What He Cost Her.
Humorous Stories.
Gwendoline’s Harvest.
Like Father, Like Son.
A Marine Residence.
Married Beneath Him.
Mirk Abbey.
Not Wooed, but Won.
Two Hundred Pounds Reward.
Less Black than We’re Painted.
By Proxy.
High Spirits.
Under One Roof.
Carlyon’s Year.
A Confidential Agent.
Some Private Views.
A Grape from a Thorn.
From Exile.
Kit: a Memory.
For Cash Only.
The Canon’s Ward.
The Talk of the Town.
Holiday Tasks.
Glow-worm Tales.
The Mystery of Mirbridge.
The Burnt Million.
The Word and the Will.
A Prince of the Blood.
=BY C. L. PIRKIS.=
Lady Lovelace.
=BY EDGAR A. POE.=
The Mystery of Marie Roget.
=BY E. C. PRICE.=
Valentina.
Gerald.
Mrs. Lancaster’s Rival.
The Foreigners.
=BY CHARLES READE.=
It is Never Too Late to Mend.
Hard Cash.
Peg Woffington.
Christie Johnstone.
Griffith Gaunt.
Put Yourself in His Place.
The Double Marriage.
Love Me Little, Love Me Long.
Foul Play.
The Cloister and the Hearth.
The Course of True Love.
The Autobiography of a Thief.
A Terrible Temptation.
The Wandering Heir.
A Simpleton.
A Woman-Hater.
Singleheart and Doubleface.
Good Stories of Men and other Animals.
The Jilt.
A Perilous Secret.
Readiana.
=BY MRS. J. H. RIDDELL.=
Her Mother’s Darling.
The Uninhabited House.
Weird Stories.
Fairy Water.
The Prince of Wales’s Garden Party.
The Mystery in Palace Gardens.
The Nun’s Curse.
Idle Tales.
=BY F. W. ROBINSON.=
Women are Strange.
The Hands of Justice.
=BY JAMES RUNCIMAN.=
Skippers and Shellbacks.
Grace Balmaign’s Sweetheart.
Schools and Scholars.
=BY W. CLARK RUSSELL.=
Round the Galley Fire.
On the Fo’k’sle Head.
In the Middle Watch.
A Voyage to the Cape.
A Book for the Hammock.
The Mystery of the ‘Ocean Star.’
The Romance of Jenny Harlowe.
An Ocean Tragedy.
My Shipmate Louise.
=BY ALAN ST. AUBYN.=
A Fellow of Trinity.
=BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.=
Gaslight and Daylight.
=BY JOHN SAUNDERS.=
Guy Waterman.
The Lion in the Path.
The Two Dreamers.
=BY KATHARINE SAUNDERS.=
Joan Merryweather.
The High Mills.
Margaret and Elizabeth.
Sebastian.
Heart Salvage.
=BY GEORGE R. SIMS.=
Rogues and Vagabonds.
The Ring o’ Bells.
Mary Jane’s Memoirs.
Mary Jane Married.
Tales of Today.
Dramas of Life.
Tinkletop’s Crime.
Zeph: a Circus Story.
=BY ARTHUR SKETCHLEY.=
A Match in the Dark.
=BY HAWLEY SMART.=
Without Love or Licence.
=BY T. W. SPEIGHT.=
The Mysteries of Heron Dyke.
The Golden Hoop.
By Devious Ways.
Hoodwinked.
Back to Life.
=BY R. A. STERNDALE.=
The Afghan Knife.
=BY R. LOUIS STEVENSON.=
New Arabian Nights.
Prince Otto.
=BY BERTHA THOMAS.=
Proud Maisie.
The Violin-Player.
Cressida.
=BY WALTER THORNBURY.=
Tales for the Marines.
Old Stories Re-told.
=BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE.=
The Way We Live Now.
Mr. Scarborough’s Family.
The Golden Lion of Granpère.
The American Senator.
Frau Frohmann.
Marion Fay.
Kept in the Dark.
The Land-Leaguers.
John Caldigate.
=BY FRANCES E. TROLLOPE.=
Anne Furness.
Mabel’s Progress.
Like Ships upon the Sea.
=BY T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.=
Diamond Cut Diamond.
=BY J. T. TROWBRIDGE.=
Farnell’s Folly.
=BY IVAN TURGENIEFF, &c.=
Stories from Foreign Novelists.
=BY MARK TWAIN.=
Tom Sawyer.
A Tramp Abroad.
The Stolen White Elephant.
A Pleasure Trip on the Continent.
The Gilded Age.
Huckleberry Finn.
Life on the Mississippi.
The Prince and the Pauper.
Mark Twain’s Sketches.
=BY SARAH TYTLER.=
Noblesse Oblige.
Citoyenne Jacqueline.
The Huguenot Family.
What She Came Through.
Beauty and the Beast.
The Bride’s Pass.
Saint Mungo’s City.
Disappeared.
Lady Bell.
Buried Diamonds.
The Blackhall Ghosts.
=BY C. C. FRASER-TYTLER.=
Mistress Judith.
=BY ARTEMUS WARD.=
Artemus Ward Complete.
=BY MRS. F. H. WILLIAMSON.=
A Child Widow.
=BY J. S. WINTER.=
Cavalry Life.
Regimental Legends.
=BY H. F. WOOD.=
The Passenger from Scotland Yard.
The Englishman of the Rue Cain.
=BY LADY WOOD.=
Sabina.
=BY CELIA PARKER WOOLLEY.=
Rachel Armstrong.
=BY EDMUND YATES.=
Castaway.
The Forlorn Hope.
Land at Last.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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=About (Edmond).—The Fellah=: An Egyptian Novel. Translated by Sir
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1. =Peg Woffington=; and │7. =Love Me Little, Love Me Long.=
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Hearth.= With a Preface by Sir │
WALTER BESANT. │
│11. =Put Yourself in His Place.=
4. =‘It is Never Too Late to │12. =A Terrible Temptation.=
Mend.’= │
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Never Did Run Smooth=; and │
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│ Characters=.
---------------------
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Mend.=’ │ │ Place.=
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Never Did Run Smooth.= │
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=The Autobiography of a │=A Woman-Hater.=
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=Wright (Thomas, F.S.A.), Works by.=
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=The Fortune of the Rougons.= Edited by ERNEST A. VIZETELLY.
=Abbe Mouret’s Transgression.= Edited by ERNEST A. VIZETELLY.
=The Conquest of Plassans.= Edited by ERNEST A. VIZETELLY.
=Germinal=; or, Master and Man. Edited by ERNEST A. VIZETELLY. [_Jan._
=His Excellency (Eugene Rougon).= With an Introduction by ERNEST A.
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=The Dram-Shop (L’Assommoir).= With Introduction by E. A. VIZETELLY.
=The Fat and the Thin.= Translated by ERNEST A. VIZETELLY.
=Money.= Translated by ERNEST A. VIZETELLY.
=The Downfall.= Translated by E. A. VIZETELLY.
=The Dream.= Translated by ELIZA CHASE. With Eight Illustrations by
JEANNIOT.
=Doctor Pascal.= Translated by E. A. VIZETELLY. With Portrait of the
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=Lourdes.= Translated by ERNEST A. VIZETELLY.
=Rome.= Translated by ERNEST A. VIZETELLY.
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=Fruitfulness (Fécondité).= Translated and Edited, with an
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SOME BOOKS CLASSIFIED IN SERIES.
⁂ _For fuller cataloguing, see alphabetical arrangement, pp. 1-26._
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=The Mayfair Library.= Post 8vo, cloth limp, 2_s._ 6_d._ per Volume.
=Quips and Quiddities.= By W. D. │=Theatrical Anecdotes.= By JACOB
ADAMS. │ LARWOOD.
=The Agony Column of ‘The Times.’= │=Ourselves.= By E. LYNN LINTON.
=A Journey Round My Room.= By X. DE│=Witch Stories.= By E. LYNN LINTON.
MAISTRE. │
Translated by HENRY ATTWELL. │=Pastimes and Players.= By R.
│ MACGREGOR.
=Poetical Ingenuities.= By W. T. │=New Paul and Virginia.= By W. H.
DOBSON. │ MALLOCK.
=The Cupboard Papers.= By FIN-BEC. │=Muses of Mayfair.= Edited by H. C.
│ PENNELL.
=W. S. Gilbert’s Plays.= Three │=Thoreau=: His Life and Aims. By H.
Series. │ A. PAGE.
=Songs of Irish Wit and Humour.= │=Puck on Pegasus.= By H. C.
│ PENNELL.
=Animals and their Masters.= By Sir│=Pegasus Re-saddled.= By H. C.
A. HELPS. │ PENNELL.
=Social Pressure.= By Sir A. HELPS.│=Puniana.= By Hon. HUGH ROWLEY.
=Autocrat of Breakfast-Table.= By │=More Puniana.= By Hon. HUGH
O. W. HOLMES. │ ROWLEY.
=Curiosities of Criticism.= By H. │=By Stream and Sea.= By WILLIAM
J. JENNINGS. │ SENIOR.
=Pencil and Palette.= By R. KEMPT. │=Leaves from a Naturalist’s
│ Note-Book.= By Dr.
=Little Essays=: from LAMB’S │ ANDREW WILSON.
LETTERS. │
=Forensic Anecdotes.= By JACOB │
LARWOOD. │
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
=The Golden Library.= Post 8vo, cloth limp, 2_s._ per Volume.
=Songs for Sailors.= By W. C. │=Scenes of Country Life.= By EDWARD
BENNETT. │ JESSE.
=Lives of the Necromancers.= By W. │=La Mort d’Arthur=: Selections from
GODWIN. │ MALLORY.
=The Autocrat of the Breakfast │=The Poetical Works of Alexander
Table.= By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.│ Pope.=
=Tale for a Chimney Corner.= By │=Diversions of the Echo Club.=
LEIGH HUNT. │ BAYARD TAYLOR.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
=Handy Novels.= Fcap. 8vo, cloth boards, 1_s._ 6_d._ each.
=Dr. Palliser’s Patient.= By GRANT │=Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.= M. E.
ALLEN. │ COLERIDGE.
=Monte Carlo Stories.= By JOAN │=The Old Maid’s Sweetheart.= By A.
BARRETT. │ ST. AUBYN.
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CRAM. │ AUBYN.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
=My Library.= Printed on laid paper, post 8vo, half-Roxburghe, 2_s._
6_d._ each.
=The Journal of Maurice de Guerin.=│=Christie Johnstone.= By CHARLES
│ READE.
=The Dramatic Essays of Charles │=Peg Woffington.= By CHARLES READE.
Lamb.= │
=Citation and Examination of │
William Shakspeare.= By W. S. │
LANDOR. │
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
=The Pocket Library.= Post 8vo, printed on laid paper and hf.-bd.,
2_s._ each.
=Gastronomy.= By BRILLAT-SAVARIN. │=The Essays of Elia.= By CHARLES
│ LAMB.
=Robinson Crusoe.= Illustrated by │=Anecdotes of the Clergy.= By JACOB
G. CRUIKSHANK. │ LARWOOD.
=Autocrat of the Breakfast Table= │=The Epicurean=, &c. By THOMAS
and =The Professor at the │ MOORE.
Breakfast-Table=. By O. W. │
HOLMES. │
=Provincial Letters of Blaise │=Plays= by RICHARD BRINSLEY
Pascal.= │ SHERIDAN.
=Whims and Oddities.= By THOMAS │=Gulliver’s Travels=, &c. By Dean
HOOD. │ SWIFT.
=Leigh Hunt’s Essays.= Edited by E.│=Thomson’s Seasons.= Illustrated.
OLLIER. │
=The Barber’s Chair.= By DOUGLAS │=White’s Natural History of
JERROLD. │ Selborne.=
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
POPULAR SIXPENNY NOVELS.
=New Arabian Nights.= R. L. [_Jan._│=The Dead Secret.= By WILKIE
STEVENSON. │ COLLINS.
=Puck.= By OUIDA. [_Feb._│=The New Magdalen.= By WILKIE
│ COLLINS.
=A Son of Hagar.= By HALL [_Mar._│=Held in Bondage.= By OUIDA.
CAINE. │
=All Sorts and Conditions of │=Moths.= By OUIDA.
Men.= By WALTER BESANT. │
│=Under Two Flags.= By OUIDA.
=The Golden Butterfly.= By │=By Proxy.= By JAMES PAYN.
WALTER BESANT and JAMES RICE. │
│=Peg Woffington;= and
│ =Christie Johnstone=. By CHARLES
│ READE.
=The Deemster.= By HALL CAINE. │
=The Shadow of a Crime.= By HALL │=The Cloister and the Hearth.= By
CAINE. │ CHARLES READE.
=Antonina.= By WILKIE COLLINS. │=Never Too Late to Mend.= By
│ CHARLES READE.
=The Moonstone.= By WILKIE COLLINS. │=Hard Cash.= By CHARLES READE.
=The Woman in White.= By WILKIE │=The Old Factory.= By WILLIAM
COLLINS. │ WESTALL.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PICCADILLY NOVELS.
LIBRARY EDITIONS OF NOVELS, many Illustrated, crown 8vo, cloth extra,
3_s._ 6_d._ each.
By Mrs. ALEXANDER.
=Valerie’s Fate.= │=Barbara.=
=A Life Interest.= │=A Fight with Fate.=
=Mona’s Choice.= │=A Golden Autumn.=
=By Woman’s Wit.= │=Mrs. Crichton’s Creditor.=
=The Cost of Her Pride.= │=The Stepmother.=
By F. M. ALLEN.—=Green as Grass.=
By GRANT ALLEN.
=Philistia.= │=Babylon.= │=The Great Taboo.=
=Strange Stories.= │=Dumaresq’s Daughter.=
=For Maimie’s Sake.= │=Duchess of Powysland.=
=In all Shades.= │=Blood Royal.=
=The Beckoning Hand.= │=I. Greet’s Masterpiece.=
=The Devil’s Die.= │=The Scallywag.=
=This Mortal Coil.= │=At Market Value.=
=The Tents of Shem.= │=Under Sealed Orders.=
By M. ANDERSON.—=Othello’s Occupation.=
By EDWIN L. ARNOLD.
=Phra the Phœnician.= │=Constable of St. Nicholas.=
By ROBERT BARR.
=In a Steamer Chair.= │=A Woman Intervenes.=
=From Whose Bourne.= │=Revenge!=
By FRANK BARRETT.
=Woman of Iron Bracelets.= │=Under a Strange Mask.=
=Fettered for Life.= │=A Missing Witness.=
=Was She Justified?= │=The Harding Scandal.=
By ‘BELLE.’—=Vashti and Esther.=
By Sir W. BESANT and J. RICE.
=Ready-Money Mortiboy.= │=By Celia’s Arbour.=
=My Little Girl.= │=Chaplain of the Fleet.=
=With Harp and Crown.= │=The Seamy Side.=
=This Son of Vulcan.= │=The Case of Mr. Lucraft.=
=The Golden Butterfly.= │=In Trafalgar’s Bay.=
=The Monks of Thelema.= │=The Ten Years’ Tenant.=
By Sir WALTER BESANT.
=All Sorts & Conditions.= │=Armorel of Lyonesse.=
=The Captains’ Room.= │=S. Katherine’s by Tower.=
=All in a Garden Fair.= │=Verbena Camellia, &c.=
=Dorothy Forster.= │=The Ivory Gate.=
=Uncle Jack.= │=Holy Rose.= │=The Rebel Queen.=
=World Went Well Then.= │=Dreams of Avarice.=
=Children of Gibeon.= │=In Deacon’s Orders.=
=Herr Paulus.= │=The Master Craftsman.=
=For Faith and Freedom.= │=The City of Refuge.=
=To Call Her Mine.= │=A Fountain Sealed.=
=The Revolt of Man.= │=The Changeling.=
=The Bell of St. Paul’s.= │=The Charm.=
By AMBROSE BIERCE.—=In Midst of Life.=
By HAROLD BINDLOSS.—=Ainslie’s Ju-Ju.=
By M. McD. BODKIN.—=Dora Myrl.=
By PAUL BOURGET.—=A Living Lie.=
By J. D. BRAYSHAW.—=Slum Silhouettes.=
By ROBERT BUCHANAN.
=Shadow of the Sword.= │=The New Abelard.=
=A Child of Nature.= │=Matt.= │=Rachel Dene.=
=God and the Man.= │=Master of the Mine.=
=The Martyrdom of Madeline.= │=The Heir of Linne.=
=Love Me for Ever.= │=Woman and the Man.=
=Annan Water.= │=Red and White Heather.=
=Foxglove Manor.= │=Lady Kilpatrick.=
=The Charlatan.=
R. W. CHAMBERS.—=The King in Yellow.=
By J. M. CHAPPLE.—=The Minor Chord.=
By HALL CAINE.
=Shadow of a Crime.= │=Deemster.= │=Son of Hagar.=
By AUSTIN CLARE.—=By Rise of River.=
By ANNE COATES.—=Rie’s Diary.=
By MACLAREN COBBAN.
=The Red Sultan.= │=The Burden of Isabel.=
By MORT. & FRANCES COLLINS.
=Blacksmith & Scholar.= │=You Play me False.=
=The Village Comedy.= │=Midnight to Midnight.=
By WILKIE COLLINS.
=Armadale.= │=After Dark.= │=The Woman in White.=
=No Name.= │=Antonina.= │=The Law and the Lady.=
=Basil.= │=Hide and │=The Haunted Hotel.=
│ Seek.= │
=The Dead Secret.= │=The Moonstone.=
=Queen of Hearts.= │=Man and Wife.=
=My Miscellanies.= │=Poor Miss Finch.=
=Miss or Mrs.?= │=Jezebel’s Daughter.=
=The New Magdalen.= │=The Black Robe.=
=The Frozen Deep.= │=Heart and Science.=
=The Two Destinies.= │=The Evil Genius.=
‘=I Say No.=’ │=The Legacy of Cain.=
=Little Novels.= │=A Rogue’s Life.=
=The Fallen Leaves.= │=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.
=Romance of the Old Seraglio.=
By MATT CRIM.
=The Adventures of a Fair Rebel.=
By S. R. CROCKETT and others.
=Tales of Our Coast.=
By B. M. CROKER.
=Diana Barrington.= │=The Real Lady Hilda.=
=Proper Pride.= │=Married or Single?=
=A Family Likeness.= │=Two Masters.=
=Pretty Miss Neville.= │=In the Kingdom of Kerry.=
=A Bird of Passage.= │=Interference.=
‘=To Let.=’ │=Mr. Jervis.= │=A Third Person.=
=Village Tales.= │=Beyond the Pale.=
=Some One │=Jason.= │=Miss Balmaine’s Past.=
Else.= │ │
=Infatuation.=
By W. CYPLES.—=Hearts of Gold.=
By ALPHONSE DAUDET.
=The Evangelist=; or, Port Salvation.
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.
=Man from Manchester.= │=Tales of Terror.=
=Records of Vincent Trill.= │=Chronicles of Michael
│ Danevitch.=
=The Mystery of Jamaica │=Tyler Tatlock, Private
Terrace.= │ Detective.=
By RICHARD DOWLING.
=Old Corcoran’s Money.=
By A. CONAN DOYLE.
=The Firm of Girdlestone.=
By S. JEANNETTE DUNCAN.
=A Daughter of To-day.= │=Vernon’s Aunt.=
By A. EDWARDES.—=A Plaster Saint.=
By G. S. EDWARDS.—=Snazelleparilla.=
By G. MANVILLE FENN.
=Cursed by a Fortune.= │=A Fluttered Dovecote.=
=The Case of Ailsa Gray.= │=King of the Castle.=
=Commodore Junk.= │=Master of the Ceremonies.=
=The New Mistress.= │=Eve at the Wheel, &c.=
=Witness to the Deed.= │=The Man with a Shadow.=
=The Tiger Lily.= │=One Maid’s Mischief.=
=The White Virgin.= │=Story of Antony Grace.=
=Black Blood.= │=This Man’s Wife.=
=Double Cunning.= │=In Jeopardy.=
=Bag of Diamonds, &c.= │=A Woman Worth Winning.=
By PERCY FITZGERALD.—=Fatal Zero.=
By R. E. FRANCILLON.
=One by One.= │=Ropes of Sand.=
=A Dog and his Shadow.= │=Jack Doyle’s Daughter.=
=A Real Queen.= │
By HAROLD FREDERIC.
=Seth’s Brother’s Wife.= │=The Lawton Girl.=
By GILBERT GAUL.
=A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder.=
By PAUL GAULOT.—=The Red Shirts.=
By CHARLES GIBBON.
=Robin Gray.= │=The Golden Shaft.=
=Loving a Dream.= │=The Braes of Yarrow.=
=Of High Degree.=
By E. GLANVILLE.
=The Lost Heiress.= │=The Golden Rock.=
=Fair │=Fossicker.= │=Tales from the Veld.=
Colonist.= │ │
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By E. J. GOODMAN.
=The Fate of Herbert Wayne.=
By Rev. S. BARING GOULD.
=Red Spider.= │=Eve.=
CECIL GRIFFITH.—=Corinthia Marazion.=
By A. CLAVERING GUNTER.
=A Florida Enchantment.=
By OWEN HALL.
=The Track of a Storm.= │=Jetsam.=
By COSMO HAMILTON.
=Glamour of Impossible.= │=Through a Keyhole.=
By THOMAS HARDY.
=Under the Greenwood Tree.=
By BRET HARTE.
=A Waif of the Plains.= │=A Protegée of Jack Hamlin’s.=
=A Ward of the Golden Gate.= │=Clarence.=
=A Sappho of Green Springs.= │=Barker’s Luck.=
=Col. Starbottle’s Client.= │=Devil’s Ford.=
=Susy.= │=Sally Dows.= │=The Crusade of the
│ │ ‘Excelsior.’=
=Bell-Ringer of Angel’s.= │=Three Partners.=
=Tales of Trail and Town.= │=Gabriel Conroy.=
By JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
=Garth.= │=Dust.= │=Beatrix Randolph.=
=Ellice Quentin.= │=David Poindexter’s
│ Disappearance.=
=Sebastian Strome.= │=Spectre of Camera.=
=Fortune’s Fool.=
By Sir A. HELPS.—=Ivan de Biron.=
By I. HENDERSON.—=Agatha Page.=
By G. A. HENTY.
=Dorothy’s Double.= │=The Queen’s Cup.=
By HEADON HILL.
=Zambra the Detective.=
By JOHN HILL.—=The Common Ancestor.=
By TIGHE HOPKINS.
=’Twixt Love and Duty.= │=Nugents of Carriconna.=
=The Incomplete Adventurer.=
VICTOR HUGO.—=The Outlaw of Iceland.=
FERGUS HUME.—=Lady from Nowhere.=
By Mrs. HUNGERFORD.
=A Mental Struggle.= │=A Maiden all Forlorn.=
=Lady Verner’s Flight.= │=The Coming of Chloe.=
=The Red-House Mystery.= │=Nora Creina.=
=The Three Graces.= │=An Anxious Moment.=
=Professor’s Experiment.= │=April’s Lady.=
=A Point of Conscience.= │=Peter’s Wife.=│=Lovice.=
By Mrs. ALFRED HUNT.
=The Leaden Casket.= │=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-Gène.=
By ADAM LILBURN.—=A Tragedy In Marble.=
By HARRY LINDSAY.
=Rhoda Roberts.= │=The Jacobite.=
By HENRY W. LUCY.—=Gideon Fleyce.=
By E. LYNN LINTON.
=Patricia Kemball.= │=The Atonement Leam Dundas.=
=Under which Lord?= │
‘=My Love!=’ │=Ione.= │=The One Too Many.=
=Paston Carew.= │=Dulcie Everton.=
=Sowing the Wind.= │=Rebel of the Family.=
=With a Silken Thread.= │=An Octave of Friends.=
=The World Well Lost.= │
By JUSTIN McCARTHY.
=A Fair Saxon.= │=Donna Quixote.=
=Linley Rochford.= │=Maid of Athens.=
=Dear Lady Disdain.= │=The Comet of a Season.=
=Camiola.= │=The Dictator.=
=Waterdale Neighbours.= │=Red Diamonds.=
=My Enemy’s Daughter.= │=The Riddle Ring.=
=Miss Misanthrope.= │=The Three Disgraces.=
By JUSTIN H. McCARTHY.
=A London Legend.= │=The Royal Christopher.=
By GEORGE MACDONALD.
=Heather and Snow.= │=Phantastes.=
W. H. MALLOCK.—=The New Republic.=
P. & V. MARGUERITTE.—=The Disaster.=
By L. T. MEADE.
=A Soldier of Fortune.= │=On Brink of a Chasm.=
=In an Iron Grip.= │=The Siren.=
=Dr. Rumsey’s Patient.= │=The Way of a Woman.=
=The Voice of the Charmer= │=A Son of Ishmael.=
=An Adventuress.=
By LEONARD MERRICK.
=This Stage of Fools.= │=Cynthia.=
By BERTRAM MITFORD.
=The Gun-Runner.= │=The King’s Assegai.=
=Luck of Gerard Ridgeley.= │=Rensh. Fanning’s Quest.=
By J. E. MUDDOCK.
=Maid Marian and Robin Hood.= │=Golden Idol.=
=Basile the Jester.= │=Young Lochinvar.=
By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY.
=A Life’s Atonement.= │=The Way of the World.=
=Joseph’s Coat.= │=Bob Martin’s Little Girl.=
=Coals of Fire.= │=Time’s Revenges.=
=Old Blazer’s Hero.= │=A Wasted Crime.=
=Val Strange.= │=Hearts.= │=In Direst Peril.=
=A Model Father.= │=Mount Despair.=
=By the Gate of the Sea.= │=A Capful o’ Nails.=
=A Bit of Human Nature.= │=Tales in Prose & Verse.=
=First Person Singular.= │=A Race for Millions.=
=Cynic Fortune.= │=This Little World.=
By MURRAY and HERMAN.
=The Bishops’ Bible.= │=One Traveller Returns.=
=Paul Jones’s Alias.= │
By HUME NISBET.—‘=Ball Up!=’
By W. E. NORRIS.
=Saint Ann’s.= │=Billy Bellew.=
=Miss Wentworth’s Idea.=
By G. OHNET.
=A Weird Gift.= │=Love’s Depths.=
By Mrs. OLIPHANT.—=The Sorceress.=
By OUIDA.
=Held in Bondage.= │=In a Winter City.=
=Strathmore.= │=Chandos.= │=Friendship.=
=Under Two Flags.= │=Moths.= │=Ruffino.=
=Idalia.= │=Pipistrello.= │=Ariadne.=
=Cecil Castlemaine’s Gage.= │=A Village Commune.=
=Tricotrin.= │=Puck.= │=Bimbi.= │=Wanda.=
=Folle Farine.= │=Frescoes.= │=Othmar.=
=A Dog of Flanders.= │=In Maremma.=
=Pascarel.= │=Signa.= │=Syrlin.= │=Guilderoy.=
=Princess Napraxine.= │=Santa Barbara.=
=Two Wooden Shoes.= │=Two Offenders.=
=The Waters of Edera.=
By MARGARET A. PAUL.
=Gentle and Simple.=
By JAMES PAYN.
=Lost Sir Massingberd.= │=The Talk of the Town.=
=A County Family.= │=Holiday Tasks.=
=Less Black than We’re │=For Cash Only.=
Painted.= │
=A Confidential Agent.= │=The Burnt Million.=
=A Grape from a Thorn.= │=The Word and the Will.=
=In Peril and Privation.= │=Sunny Stories.=
=Mystery of Mirbridge.= │=A Trying Patient.=
=Walter’s Word.= │=A Modern Dick Whittington.=
=High Spirits.=│=By Proxy.= │
By WILL PAYNE.—=Jerry the Dreamer.=
By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED.
=Outlaw and Lawmaker.= │=Mrs. Tregaskiss.=
=Christina Chard.= │=Nulma.= │=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.= │=A Rich Man’s Daughter.=
By AMELIE RIVES.
=Barbara Dering.= │=Meriel.=
By F. W. ROBINSON.
=The Hands of Justice.= │=Woman in the Dark.=
By ALBERT ROSS.—=A Sugar Princess.=
By HERBERT RUSSELL.—=True Blue.=
------------------------------------------------------------------------
=By CHARLES READE.=
=Peg Woffington=; and │=Griffith Gaunt.=
=Christie Johnstone=. │
│=Love Little, Love Long.=
=Hard Cash.= │=The Double Marriage.=
=Cloister & the Hearth.= │=Foul Play.=
=Never Too Late to Mend.= │=Put Yourself in His Place.=
=The Course of True Love=; │=A Terrible Temptation.=
and =Singleheart & │
Doubleface=. │
│=A Simpleton.=
=Autobiography of a │=A Woman-Hater.=
Thief=; =Jack of all Trades=;│
=A Hero and a Martyr=; and │
=The Wandering Heir=. │
│=The Jilt=, & other Stories; &
│ =Good Stories of Man=.
│=A Perilous Secret.=
│=Readiana=; and =Bible
│ Characters=.
J. RUNCIMAN.—=Skippers and Shellbacks.=
By W. CLARK RUSSELL.
=Round the Galley-Fire.= │=My Shipmate Louise.=
=In the Middle Watch.= │=Alone on Wide Wide Sea.=
=On the Fo’k’sle Head.= │=The Phantom Death.=
=A Voyage to the Cape.= │=Is He the Man?=
=Book for the Hammock.= │=Good Ship ‘Mohock.’=
=Mystery of ‘Ocean Star.’= │=The Convict Ship.=
=Jenny Harlowe.= │=Heart of Oak.=
=An Ocean Tragedy.= │=The Tale of the Ten.=
=A Tale of Two Tunnels.= │=The Last Entry.=
By DORA RUSSELL.—=Drift of Fate.=
BAYLE ST. JOHN.—=A Levantine Family.=
By ADELINE SERGEANT.
=Dr. Endicott’s Experiment.=
=Under False Pretences.=
By GEORGE R. SIMS
=Dagonet Abroad.= │=Rogues and Vagabonds.=
=Once upon a Christmas Time.= │=In London’s Heart.=
=Without the Limelight.= │=Mary Jane Married.=
│=The Small part Lady.=
=By HAWLEY SMART.=
=Without Love or Licence.= │=The Outsider.=
=The Master of Rathkelly.= │=Beatrice & Benedick.=
=Long Odds.= │=A Racing Rubber.=
By T. W. SPEIGHT.
=A Secret of the Sea.= │=A Minion of the Moon.=
=The Grey Honk.= │=Secret Wyvern Towers.=
=The Master of Trenance.= │=The Doom of Siva.=
=The Web of Fate.=
=By ALAN ST. AUBYN.=
=A Fellow of Trinity.= │=The Tremlett Diamonds.=
=The Junior Dean.= │=The Wooing of May.=
=Master of St. Benedict’s.= │=A Tragic Honeymoon.=
=To his Own Master.= │=A Proctor’s Wooing.=
=Gallantry Bower.= │=Fortune’s Gate.=
=In Face of the World.= │=Bonnie Maggie Lauder.=
=Orchard Damerel.= │=Mary Unwin.=
=By JOHN STAFFORD.=—=Doris and I.=
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 Siren’s Web.=
BERTHA THOMAS.—=The Violin-Player.=
By FRANCES E. TROLLOPE.
=Like Ships upon Sea.= │=Mabel’s Progress.=
=Anne Furness.=
=By ANTHONY TROLLOPE.=
=The Way we Live Now.= │=Scarborough’s Family.=
=Frau Frohmann.= │=The Land-Leaguers.=
=Marion Fay.=
=By IVAN TURGENIEFF, &c.=
=Stories from Foreign Novelists.=
=By MARK TWAIN.=
=Choice Works.= │=Pudd’nhead Wilson.=
=Library of Humour.= │=The Gilded Age.=
=The Innocents Abroad.= │=Prince and the Pauper.=
=Roughing It=; and =The │=Life on the Mississippi.=
Innocents at Home=. │
│=The Adventures of
│ Huckleberry Finn.=
=A Tramp Abroad.= │
=The American Claimant.= │=A Yankee at the Court of
│ King Arthur.=
=Adventures of Tom Sawyer.= │
=Tom Sawyer Abroad.= │=Stolen White Elephant.=
=Tom Sawyer, Detective.= │=£1,000,000 Bank-note.=
C. C. F.-TYTLER.—=Mistress Judith.=
=By SARAH TYTLER.=
=What She Came Through.= │=Mrs. Carmichael’s
│ Goddesses.= =Lady Bell.=
=Buried Diamonds.= │
=The Blackhall Ghosts.= │=Rachel Langton.=
=The Macdonald Lass.= │=A Honeymoon’s Eclipse.=
=Witch-Wife.= │=Sapphira.= │=A Young Dragon.=
=By ALLEN UPWARD.=
=The Queen against Owen.= │=The Prince of Balkistan.=
=By ALBERT D. VANDAM.=
=A Court Tragedy.=
=By E. A. VIZETELLY.=—=The Scorpion.=
=By F. WARDEN.= —=Joan, the Curate.=
=By CY WARMAN.= —=Express Messenger.=
=By WILLIAM WESTALL.=
=For Honour and Life.= │=The Old Factory.=
=A Woman Tempted Him.= │=Red Ryvington.=
=Her Two Millions.= │=Ralph Norbreck’s Trust.=
=Two Pinches of Snuff.= │=Trust-money.=
=Nigel Fortescue.= │=Sons of Belial.=
=Birch Dene.= │=Roy of Roy’s Court.=
=The Phantom City.= │=With the Red Eagle.=
=A Queer Race.= │=Strange Crimes= (True
│ Stories).
=Ben Clough.= │
=By ATHA WESTBURY.=
=The Shadow of Hilton Fernbrook.=
=By C. J. WILLS.=—=An Easy-going Fellow.=
=By JOHN STRANGE WINTER.=
=Cavalry Life; and Regimental Legends.=
=A Soldier’s Children.=
=By E. ZOLA.=
=Fortune of the Rougons.=
=Abbe Mouret’s Transgression.=
=The Conquest of Plassans.= │=Germinal.=
=The Downfall.= │=His Excellency.=
=The Dream.= │=Money.= │=The Dram-Shop.=
=Dr. Pascal.= │=Lourdes.= │=Rome.= │=Paris.=
=The Fat and the Thin.= │=Fruitfulness.=
By ‘Z. Z.’—=A nineteenth Century Miracle.=
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHEAP EDITIONS OF POPULAR NOVELS.
Post 8vo, Illustrated boards, 2s. each.
=By ARTEMUS WARD.=
=Artemus Ward Complete.=
=By EDMOND ABOUT.=
=The Fellah.=
=By Mrs. ALEXANDER.=
=Maid, Wife, or Widow?= │=A Life Interest.=
=Blind Fate.= │=Mona’s Choice.=
=Valerie’s Fate.= │=By Woman’s Wit.=
=By GRANT ALLEN.=
=Philistia.= │=Babylon.= │=Dumaresq’s Daughter.=
=Strange Stories.= │=Duchess of Powysland.=
=For Maimie’s Sake.= │=Blood Royal.=
=In all Shades.= │=Ivans’s Great Masterpiece=
=The Beckoning Hand.= │=The Scallywag.=
=The Devil’s Die.= │=This Mortal Coil.=
=The Tents of Shem.= │=At Market Value.=
=The Great Taboo.= │=Under Sealed Orders.=
=By E. LESTER ARNOLD.=
=Phra the Phœnician.=
=By FRANK BARRETT.=
=Fettered for Life.= │=Found Guilty.=
=Little Lady Linton.= │=A Recoiling Vengeance.=
=Between Life & Death.= │=For Love and Honour.=
=Sin of Olga Zassoulich.= │=John Ford=, &c.
=Folly Morrison.= │=Woman of Iron Brace’ts.=
=Lieut. Barnabas.= │=The Harding Scandal.=
=Honest Davie.= │=A Missing Witness.=
=A Prodigal’s Progress.= │
=By FREDERICK BOYLE.=
=Camp Notes.= │=Chronicles of No-man’s Land.=
=Savage Life.=
=By Sir W. BESANT and J. RICE.=
=Ready-Money Mortiboy.= │=By Cella’s Arbour.=
=My Little Girl.= │=Chaplain of the Fleet.=
=With Harp and Crown.= │=The Seamy Side.=
=This Son of Vulcan.= │=The Case of Mr. Lucraft.=
=The Golden Butterfly.= │=In Trafalgar’s Bay.=
=The Monks of Thelema.= │=The Ten Years’ Tenant.=
=By Sir WALTER BESANT.=
=All Sorts and Conditions │=The Bell of St. Paul’s.=
of Men.= │
│=The Holy Rose.=
=The Captains’ Room.= │=Armorel of Lyonesse=
=All in a Garden Fair.= │=S. Katherine’s by Tower.=
=Dorothy Forster.= │=Verbena Camellia
│ Stephanotis.=
=Uncle Jack.= │
=The World Went Very Well │=The Ivory Gate.=
Then.= │
│=The Rebel Queen.=
=Children of Gibeon.= │=Beyond Dreams of
│ Avarice.=
=Herr Paulus.= │
=For Faith and Freedom.= │=The Revolt of Man.=
=To Call Her Mine.= │=In Deacon’s Orders.=
=The Master Craftsman.= │=The City of Refuge.=
=By AMBROSE BIERCE.=
=In the Midst of Life.=
=By BRET HARTE.=
=Californian Stories.= │=Flip.= │=Maruja.=
=Gabriel Conroy.= │=A Phyllis of the Sierras.=
=Luck of Roaring Camp.= │=A Waif of the Plains.=
=An Heiress of Red Dog.= │=Ward of Golden Gate.=
=By ROBERT BUCHANAN.=
=Shadow of the Sword.= │=The Martyrdom of
│ Madeline.=
=A Child of Nature.= │
=God and the Man.= │=The New Abelard.=
=Love Me for Ever.= │=The Heir of Linne.=
=Foxglove Manor.= │=Woman and the Man.=
=The Master of the Mine.= │=Rachel Dene.= │=Matt.=
=Annan Water.= │=Lady Kilpatrick.=
=By BUCHANAN and MURRAY.=
=The Charlatan.=
=By HALL CAINE.=
=The Shadow of a Crime.= │=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 Ferroll.=
=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.= │=Sweet and Twenty.=
=Transmigration.= │=The Village Comedy.=
=From Midnight to │=You Play me False.=
Midnight.= │
│=Blacksmith and Scholar.=
=A Fight with Fortune.= │=Frances.=
=By WILKIE COLLINS.=
=Armadale.= │=After Dark.= │=My Miscellanies.=
=No Name.= │=The Woman in White.=
=Antonina.= │=The Moonstone.=
=Basil.= │=Man and Wife.=
=Hide and Seek.= │=Poor Miss Finch.=
=The Dead Secret.= │=The Fallen Leaves.=
=Queen of Hearts.= │=Jezebel’s Daughter.=
=Miss or Mrs.?= │=The Black Robe.=
=The New Magdalen.= │=Heart and Science.=
=The Frozen Deep.= │‘=I Say No!=’
=The Law and the Lady.= │=The Evil Genius.=
=The Two Destinies.= │=Little Novels.=
=The Haunted Hotel.= │=Legacy of Cain.=
=A Rogue’s Life.= │=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 Fair Rebel.=
=By B. M. CROKER.=
=Pretty Miss Neville.= │=Village Tales and Jungle
│ Tragedies.=
=Diana Barrington.= │
‘=To Let.=’ │=Two Masters.=
=A Bird of Passage.= │=Mr. Jervis.=
=Proper Pride.= │=The Real Lady Hilda.=
=A Family Likeness.= │=Married or Single?=
=A Third Person.= │=Interference.=
=By ALPHONSE DAUDET.=
=The Evangelist=; or, Port Salvation.
=By DICK DONOVAN.=
=The Man-Hunter.= │=In the Grip of the Law.=
=Tracked and Taken.= │=From Information
│ Received.=
=Caught at Last!= │
=Wanted!= │=Tracked to Doom.=
=Who Poisoned Hetty │=Link by Link.=
Duncan?= │
│=Suspicion Aroused.=
=Man from Manchester.= │=Dark Deeds.=
=A Detective’s Triumphs.= │=Riddles Read.=
=The Mystery of Jamaica Terrace.=
=The Chronicles of Michael Danevitch.=
=By Mrs. ANNIE EDWARDES.=
=A Point of Honour.= │=Archie Lovell.=
=By EDWARD EGGLESTON.=
=Roxy.=
=By G. MANVILLE FENN.=
=The New Mistress.= │=The Tiger Lily.=
=Witness to the Deed.= │=The White Virgin.=
=By PERCY FITZGERALD.=
=Bella Donna.= │=Second Mrs. Tillotson.=
=Never Forgotten.= │=Seventy-five Brooke
│ Street.=
=Polly.= │
=Fatal Zero.= │=The Lady of Brantome.=
=By P. FITZGERALD and others.=
=Strange Secrets.=
=By R. E. FRANCILLON.=
=Olympia.= │=King or Knave?=
=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.=
=For Lack of Gold.= │=The Braes of Yarrow.=
=What will World Say?= │=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.= │=Heart’s Delight.=
=The Dead Heart.= │=Blood-Money.=
=By WILLIAM GILBERT.=
=James Duke.=
=By ERNEST GLANVILLE.=
=The Lost Heiress.= │=The Fossicker.=
=A Fair Colonist.= │
=By Rev. S. BARING GOULD.=
=Red Spider.= │=Eve.=
=By HENRY GREVILLE.=
=Nikanor.=
=By ANDREW HALLIDAY.=
=Every-day Papers.=
=By THOMAS HARDY.=
=Under the Greenwood Tree.=
=By JULIAN HAWTHORNE.=
=Garth.= │=Beatrix Randolph.=
=Ellice Quentin.= │=Love—or a Name.=
=Fortune’s Fool.= │=David Poindexter’s
│ Disappearance.=
=Miss Cadogna.= │
=Sebastian Strome.= │=The Spectre of the
│ Camera.=
=Dust.= │
=By Sir ARTHUR HELPS.=
=Ivan de Biron.=
=By G. A. HENTY.=
=Rujub 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 Baby.=
=By Mrs. HUNGERFORD.=
=A Maiden all Forlorn.= │=Lady Verner’s Flight.=
=In Durance Vile.= │=The Red-House Mystery.=
=Marvel.= │=The Three Graces.=
=A Mental Struggle.= │=Unsatisfactory Lover.=
=A Modern Circe.= │=Lady Patty.=
=April’s Lady.= │=Nora Creina.=
=Peter’s Wife.= │=Professor’s Experiment.=
=By Mrs. ALFRED HUNT.=
=Thornicroft’s Model.= │=Self-Condemned.=
=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.= │=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 Atonement of Leam
│ Dundas.=
=The World Well Lost.= │
=Under which Lord?= │=Rebel of the Family.=
=Paston Carew.= │=Sowing the Wind.=
‘=My Love!=’ │=The One Too Many.=
=Ione.= │=Dulcie Everton.=
=With a Silken Thread.= │
=By HENRY W. LUCY.=
=Gideon Fleyce.=s
=By JUSTIN McCARTHY.=
=Dear Lady Disdain.= │=Donna Quixote.=
=Waterdale Neighbours.= │=Maid of Athens.=
=My Enemy’s Daughter.= │=The Comet of a Season.=
=A Fair Saxon.= │=The Dictator.=
=Linley Rochford.= │=Red Diamonds.=
=Miss Misanthrope.= │=The Riddle Ring.=
=Camiola.= │
=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.=
=By 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.=
=Stories Weird and Wonderful.= │=From the Bosom of the Deep.=
=The Dead Man’s Secret.= │
=By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY.=
=A Model Father.= │=A Bit of Human Nature.=
=Joseph’s Coat.= │=First Person Singular.=
=Coals of Fire.= │=Bob Martin’s Little Girl.=
=Val Strange.= │=Hearts.= │=Time’s Revenges.=
=Old Blazer’s Hero.= │=A Wasted Crime.=
=The Way of the World.= │=In Direst Peril.=
=Cynic Fortune.= │=Mount Despair.=
=A Life’s Atonement.= │=A Capful o’ Nails.=
=By the Gate of the Sea.= │
=By MURRAY and HERMAN.=
=One Traveller Returns.= │=The Bishops’ Bible.=
=Paul Jones’s Alias.= │
=By HUME NISBET.=
‘=Ball Up!=’ │=Dr. Bernard St. Vincent.=
=By W. E. NORRIS.=
=Saint Ann’s.= │=Billy Bellew.=
By ALICE O’HANLON.
=The Unforeseen.= │=Chance? or Fate?=
=By GEORGES OHNET.=
=Dr. Rameau.= │=A Weird Gift.=
=A Last Love.= │
=By Mrs. OLIPHANT.=
=Whiteladies.= │=The Greatest Heiress in
│ England.=
=The Primrose Path.= │
=By OUIDA.=
=Held in Bondage.= │=Two Lit. Wooden Shoes.=
=Strathmore.= │=Moths.=
=Chandos.= │=Bimbi.=
=Idalia.= │=Pipistrello.=
=Under Two Flags.= │=A Village Commune.=
=Cecil Castlemaine’s Gage.= │=Wanda.=
=Tricotrin.= │=Othmar.=
=Puck.= │=Frescoes.=
=Folle Farine.= │=In Maremma.=
=A Dog of Flanders.= │=Guilderoy.=
=Pascarel.= │=Ruffino.=
=Signa.= │=Syrlin.=
=Princess Napraxine.= │=Santa Barbara.=
=In a Winter City.= │=Two Offenders.=
=Ariadne.= │=Ouida’s Wisdom, Wit, and
│ Pathos.=
=Friendship.= │
=By MARGARET AGNES PAUL.=
=Gentle and Simple.=
=By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED.=
=The Romance of a Station.=
=The Soul of Countess Adrian.=
=Outlaw and Lawmaker.= │=Christina Chard.=
=Mrs. Tregaskiss.= │
=By RICHARD PRYCE.=
=Miss Maxwell’s Affections.=
=By JAMES PAYN.=
=Bentinck’s Tutor.= │=The Talk of the Town.=
=Murphy’s Master.= │=Holiday Tasks.=
=A County Family.= │=A Perfect Treasure.=
=At Her Mercy.= │=What He Cost Her.=
=Cecil’s Tryst.= │=A Confidential Agent.=
=The Clyffards of Clyffe.= │=Glow-worm Tales.=
=The Foster Brothers.= │=The Burnt Million.=
=Found Dead.= │=Sunny Stories.=
=The Best of Husbands.= │=Lost Sir Massingberd.=
=Walter’s Word.= │=A Woman’s Vengeance.=
=Halves.= │=The Family Scapegrace.=
=Fallen Fortunes.= │=Gwendoline’s Harvest.=
=Humorous Stories.= │=Like Father, Like Son.=
=£200 Reward.= │=Married Beneath Him.=
=A Marine Residence.= │=Not Wooed, but Won.=
=Mirk Abbey.= │=Less Black than We’re
│ Painted.=
=By Proxy.= │
=Under One Roof.= │=Some Private Views.=
=High Spirits.= │=A Grape from a Thorn.=
=Carlyon’s Year.= │=The Mystery of
│ Mirbridge.=
=From Exile.= │
=For Cash Only.= │=The Word and the Will.=
=Kit.= │=A Prince of the Blood.=
=The Canon’s Ward.= │=A Trying Patient.=
=By CHARLES READE.=
=It is Never Too Late to │=A Terrible Temptation.=
Mend.= │
│=Foul Play.=
=Christie Johnstone.= │=The Wandering Heir.=
=The Double Marriage.= │=Hard Cash.=
=Put Yourself in His Place.= │=Singleheart and Doubleface.=
=Love Me Little, Love Me Long.=│=Good Stories of Man and other
│ Animals.=
=The Cloister and the │=Peg Woffington.=
Hearth.= │
│=Griffith Gaunt.=
=Course of True Love.= │=A Perilous Secret.=
=The Jilt.= │=A Simpleton.=
=The Autobiography of a │=Readiana.=
Thief.= │
│=A Woman-Hater.=
=By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL.=
=Weird Stories.= │=The Uninhabited House.=
=Fairy Water.= │=The Mystery in Palace
│ Gardens.=
=Her Mother’s Darling.= │
=The Prince of Wales’s │=The Nun’s Curse.=
Garden Party.= │
│=Idle Tales.=
=By F. W. ROBINSON.=
=Women are Strange.= │=The Woman in the Dark.=
=The Hands of Justice.= │
=By W. CLARK RUSSELL.=
=Round the Galley Fire.= │=An Ocean Tragedy.=
=On the Fo’k’sle Head.= │=My Shipmate Louise.=
=In the Middle Watch.= │=Alone on Wide Wide Sea.=
=A Voyage to the Cape.= │=Good Ship ‘Mohock.’=
=A Book for the Hammock.= │=The Phantom Death.=
│=Is He the Man?=
=The Mystery of the ‘Ocean │=Heart of Oak.=
Star.’= │
│=The Convict Ship.=
=The Romance of Jenny │=The Tale of the Ten.=
Harlowe.= │
│=The Last Entry.=
=By DORA RUSSELL.=
=A Country Sweetheart.= │
=By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.=
=Gaslight and Daylight.=
=By GEORGE R. SIMS.=
=The Ring o’ Bells.= │=Zeph.=
=Mary Jane’s Memoirs.= │=Memoirs of a Landlady.=
=Mary Jane Married.= │=Scenes from the Show.=
=Tales of To-day.= │=The 10 Commandments.=
=Dramas of Life.= │=Dagonet Abroad.=
=Tinkletop’s Crime.= │=Rogues and Vagabonds.=
=My Two Wives.= │
=By ARTHUR SKETCHLEY.=
=A Match in the Dark.=
=By HAWLEY SMART.=
=Without Love or Licence.= │=The Plunger.=
=Beatrice and Benedick.= │=Long Odds.=
=The Master of Rathkelly.= │
=By T. W. SPEIGHT.=
=The Mysteries of Heron │=Back to Life.=
Dyke.= │
│=The Loudwater Tragedy.=
=The Golden Hoop.= │=Burgo’s Romance.=
=Hoodwinked.= │=Quittance in Full.=
=By Devious Ways.= │=A Husband from the Sea.=
=By ALAN ST. AUBYN.=
=A Fellow of Trinity.= │=Orchard Damerel.=
=The Junior Dean.= │=In the Face of the World.=
=Master of St. Benedict’s.= │=The Tremlett Diamonds.=
=To His Own Master.= │
=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 THORNBURY.=
=Tales for the Marines.=
=By T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.=
=Diamond Cat Diamond.=
=By F. ELEANOR TROLLOPE.=
=Like Ships upon the Sea.= │=Anne Furness.=
│=Mabel’s Progress.=
=By ANTHONY TROLLOPE.=
=Frau Frohmann.= │=The American Senator.=
=Marion Fay.= │=Mr. Scarborough’s
│ Family.=
=Kept in the Dark.= │
=The Way We Live Now.= │=Golden Lion of Granpere.=
=The Land-Leaguers.= │
=By MARK TWAIN.=
=A Pleasure Trip on the │=Stolen White Elephant.=
Continent.= │
│=Life on the Mississippi.=
=The Gilded Age.= │=The Prince and the
│ Pauper.=
=Huckleberry Finn.= │
=Mark Twain’s Sketches.= │=A Yankee at the Court of
│ King Arthur.=
=Tom Sawyer.= │
=A Tramp Abroad.= │=£1,000,000 Bank-Note.=
=By C. C. FRASER-TYTLER.=
=Mistress Judith.=
=By SARAH TYTLER.=
=Bride’s Pass.=│=Lady Bell.= │=The Huguenot Family.=
=Buried Diamonds.= │=The Blackhall Ghosts.=
=St. Mungo’s City.= │=What She Came Through.=
=Noblesse Oblige.= │=Beauty and the Beast.=
=Disappeared.= │=Citoyenne Jaqueline.=
=By ALLEN UPWARD.=
=The Queen against Owen.= │=Prince of Balkistan.=
‘=God Save the Queen!=’
=By WILLIAM WESTALL.=
=Trust-Money.=
=By Mrs. F. H. WILLIAMSON.=
=A Child Widow.=
=By J. S. WINTER.=
=Cavalry Life.= │=Regimental Legends.=
=By H. F. WOOD.=
=The Passenger from Scotland Yard.=
=The Englishman of the Rue Cain.=
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
UNWIN BROTHERS, Printers, 27, Pilgrim Street, London, E.C.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note
The plural of ‘mosquito’ appears as both ‘mosquitos’ and ‘mosquitoes’
with equal frequency.
A parenthetical remark may begin at 222.16. The remark ends with the
paragraph, but the opening parenthesis is missing. The opening has
been placed where it makes the most sense: “(The marvel is ... one of
his own!)”
An extensive publisher’s catalog at the end of the text is included
here. Since space was at a premium, abbreviation and punctuation was
variable. The lapses in punctuation have been addressed with no
further mention here.
Footnote 185, regarding the frequent removal of civil servants,
appears on p. 441. The index refers to the note on p. 420. The page
number was corrected.
Two small in-line images in the catalog, on p. 13 and p. 29, were not
reproduced here.
Other errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been
corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line
in the original.
x.14 ADAM’S PEAK [P/F]ROM MASKELIYA Replaced.
11.25 enjoy a winter there[.] Added.
17.29 heterogeneous popula[la]tion Removed.
39.34 the[,] ever-changing sunset glories Removed.
43.30 to lay 3,000,000 egg[s] Added.
49.3 _Capitan de Canella_ _sic_: Canela
74.39 all the way from [Cal/Kala]tura to Colombo Replaced.
107.20 misshap[p]en bunch of leaves Removed.
127.28 to see a magnific[i]ent network Removed.
159.40 with its sad freight[.] Added.
178.6 An enormous[,] ring Removed.
180.1 The wife of a minor chief is Menik[e/ê] Replaced.
213.27 in the Courts of Justice[,] Added.
213.38 which we have of [t]his festival Restored.
224.33 fastened our Saviour to the Cross.[’] Added.
228.37 in Lancash[ ]ire Removed.
263.6 a single rain[s-t/-st]orm Moved.
271.19 nearest the d[o/a]goba Replaced.
280.29 this [‘]Tower of Babel’ had to be taken down Added.
283.24 luxury of an Orient[i]al court. Removed.
297.20 the steed is stolen[’] Added.
300.15 the cashew-tree yields tannin[.] Added.
302.12 that the Veddahs eat a[ ]kabragoya Inserted.
357.40 [‘]See ‘Wild Men and Wild Beasts.’ Removed.
402.1 ‘The Ninetee[e]nth Century’ Removed.
389.21 composed of Moors, Hindoos[,] Buddhists, and Added.
Veddahs
375.13 Many[ ]of those who were Inserted.
404.36 even the great tree cacti[i] Removed.
407.25 a time of grave anxiety.[)] Added.
407.37 whoever he may have been.[)] Added.
414.29 and scarlet h[y/i]biscus Replaced.
417.35 who are ma[r]vellously expert climbers Inserted.
435.18 it is known as copperah[.] Added.
452.3 delicious creamy buffalo-mi[l]k Inserted.
461.35 to supply building materia[l] Added.
463.13 B.C. 307[.] Added.
464.45 attributed to their intercessions.[)] Added.
484.6 the walls of Galle g[oa/ao]l. Transposed.
498.32 a bright yellow par[r]oquet Inserted.
513.13 above the sea-level[.] Added.
548.23 to a very great exte[x/n]t Replaced.
557.10 represented as wor[hs/sh]ippers Transposed.
592.29 white men would contemptuou[s]ly have Inaerted.
described
599.43 I am there shall also My servant be[,/.] Replaced.
612.43 Hat-bodin, seven [b/B]o-trees Replaced.
613.26 its bridge of boat[s,] Added.
613.28 an inland town [B.] ?
v1.16 of a delight[f]ul cruise Inserted.
17.62 or, Memoirs o[f] a Hindoo Inserted.
a2.31 From Information [r/R]eceived. Replaced.
a2.75 Gaspard de [G/C]oligny Replaced.
a5.46 Geoff[or/re]y Hamilton. Replaced.
a6.56 with [ ] missing text
a11.62 STA[N]LEY L. WOOD. Restored.
a19.48 po[t/s]t 8vo, cloth, 2_s._ net; Replaced.
a24.19 Six Ill[l]ustrations Removed.
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