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.

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.