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!
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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.
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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]
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Footnote 137:
‘Story of the Happy Valley Mission.’ By the Rev. Samuel Langdon. London.
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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]
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Footnote 138:
See Chapter viii.
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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.’
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Footnote 139:
Manis pentadactyla.
Footnote 140:
Myrmecophaga.
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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.
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.
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Footnote 141:
Felis jubata.
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‘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.
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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.
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‘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.
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Footnote 143:
See ‘Wild Men and Wild Beasts.’ By Colonel William Gordon Cumming. Published by David Douglas, Edinburgh.
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‘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.
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.
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Footnote 144:
See Chapter iv. A glance at the map will well repay the trouble.
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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]
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Footnote 145:
See page 248.
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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.
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Footnote 146:
Cerithium Palustre.
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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.
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Footnote 147:
September 10th, 1873.
Footnote 148:
‘The Malay Apple’ (Eugenia Malaccensis).
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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.
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Footnote 149:
The work of collecting the sap of the palm-blossoms is described in page 418.
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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.
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Footnote 150:
The Right Rev. R. S. Copleston, D.D.
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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).
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Footnote 151:
On the 1st December, 1890.
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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]
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Footnote 152:
Any donations for this object will be gladly received by Mrs. Coplestone, 16 Denmark Place, Brighton.
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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]
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Footnote 153:
See Chapter xxii. Subdivisions of Fisher Caste.
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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]
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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.’
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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]
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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.
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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.
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Footnote 156:
For many years Inspector-General of Police in Ceylon.
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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.
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.
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Footnote 157:
The ancient name of Ceylon.
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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.
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]
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Footnote 158:
See Chapter xiii.
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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.
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.
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]
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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.
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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.
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Footnote 160:
As our ancestors did on the Oath-stone of Iona. See ‘In the Hebrides,’ p. 70.
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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.
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.
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Footnote 161:
The Entada pursætha, called by the Singhalese the Maha-pus-wuel, or great hollow climber.
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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.
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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).
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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.