terminations of which have not been explored. The Ratémahatmaya of the district told us he had examined one for a distance of two hundred fathoms, and might have gone further but for the annoyance of bats; and that the natives believed the other could be traced for at least two miles; but they had a dread of both, fearing serpents, &c. Possibly the author of Sindbad the Sailor had heard something of these, and fancying the streams which ran by them to have gone through instead, worked them up in his hero's experiences of Ceylon; for he speaks of rivers flowing through mountains; and declares that by one such he was floated on a raft into the interior of the Island.

There is a route through the jungle from this place to the pilgrims' path to the Peak, much frequented by those who make the pilgrimage from the immediate neighbourhood; but the usual route being from Ratnapura, we turned back to the main road, and shortly after crossing the bridge, saw on our left, the Kaṭutiyambaráwa vihára. We found it to be of modern date, having been built by Ekneligoda Disáwa, the daring chief who seized the person of the last king of Kandy, and delivered him, a fettered captive, into the hands of the British; † an act which greatly facilitated,

*Ratémahatmaya,' the chief native revenue officer of a Kandian District. The corresponding officer in the Maritime Provinces has the rank of Mudaliyar.

"On the 14th February 1815, the British forces entered the Kandian capital unopposed, The king having awoke too late from his

if it was not the actual immediate cause of the annexation of the Kandian kingdom, and for which, as also for other eminent services, he received a gold medal and chain from the then Governor, General Sir Robert Brownrigg, together with the more substantial though not more prized rewards

delusive dream of security, had fled on their approach into Dumbara, accompanied by only a few Tamil adherents; leaving the females of his family, with a considerable treasure to the mercy of the victor. Driven by heavy rain from a mountain where he concealed himself during the day, he descended and took shelter in a solitary house in the neighbourhood of Medamahanuwara, not aware that there was a force at hand lying in wait for him. The retreat was soon discovered by some of Ehelépola's adherents, under the orders of Eknęligoda, who surrounded the house in which he had hid himself with two of his wives. The door was strongly barricaded, but they battered down the wall of the apartment in which the tyrant was concealed; when he was exposed by the glare of torchlights to the derision of his enemies. Their abrupt entry, the first time for fifteen years since he became king that he had been approached without servile humility, -for a moment seemed to confound him; but as the party pressed forward, he dared them to touch him. The chief urged on his followers, and the orders to seize the king were soon obeyed. Ekneligoda had ventured too far to indulge any hopes of safety, unless the downfall of the tyrant could be accomplished. If the king should regain authority, he felt certain that he would have been added to the list of forty-seven headmen, many of them friends of his own, who in the previous year had been brought from Saffragam, and impaled by the tyrant's order. Wikrama Sinha, was soon after conveyed to Vellore, in the Madras Presidency, where he died of dropsy in 1832."-HISTORY OF CEYLON, published by the Sinhalese Tract Society.

of grants of lands, and the high native rank of Disáwa.* There is an inscription on a stone, set upon a pillar, recording the piety of the builder, who is also buried here. The image of Buddha is sedent, and some of his relics are here preserved in a karandua or case carefully covered over with cloths, in order to preserve them from the profanation of the gaze of vulgar or heretical curiosity. The grounds about the vihára are kept in very neat order, bordered with laurels and flowers, and the pansala or priests' residence is of two stories, the upper one having a balcony in its front, from which was hung a representation on white cloth of the Srí-páda, with the hundred and eight signs, marked in vermilion, that indicate the possessor of them to be a Buddha. These correspond with the embossments and ornaments on the cover of the sacred footstep kept at Palábaddala. The signs consist of devices formed from the appearance of the lotus flower in its various stages of development, the lotus being, throughout the East, the emblem of beauty and perfection.

The expression "lotus feet" or "lotus-footed," is one

* Governor of a Kandian Province, under the native kings. This title is now either extinct, or in abeyance; its last holder, Eheliyagoḍa Dasanayaka Ranasinha Mudiyanse, Disáwa of Three Kórales and Lower Bulatgama, having died in September 1869. The grandfather of the highly intelligent and influential Kandian Chief, William Alexander Abraham Ekneligoda, or Ekneligoda of that ilk, the present Ratemahatmayá of the Kuruwita Kórale, was the Disáwa referred to in the text.

commonly used when speaking of Buddha's person; and the

idea that

"flowers upsprang where'er his feet were placed"

is repeated again and again in the legends and poetry of the Sinhalese. To realise this idea, and indicate the appearance of flowers as actually marked upon his feet, was but to obey the tendencies of the Oriental mind. The same or a cognate idea is conveyed in purer form in the well-known language of the inspired Hebrew prophet, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation." The doctrines of Buddha, when first promulgated, were good tidings in comparison with those of the Brahmans; and whosoever received them, secured to him or herself, according to his teachings, peace and salvation --the perfect bliss and absolute never-ending repose of Nirwana. Perhaps this was referred to by the original symboliser in the full-developed lotus flower in the centre of the ball of the foot. At any rate this mode of symbolisation is more poetical than that adopted by Burmese

* This is an idea firmly impressed upon the minds of Buddhists, who have a singular method of perpetuating the belief, in the manufacture of a peculiar kind of sandal, from the upright peg of which, gripped between the great and second toe, each time a step is taken, a spring causes a metal-shaped lotus to start up.

† Isaiah lii. 7.

Buddhists; who, while they demand the same number of a hundred and eight marks, depict them in a different form, each form, no doubt, symbolising perfection: thus, the toes are each marked underneath with a chank with right handed whorls,* and the ball of the foot has circles of alternating hanzas, † and other animals and figures; which signs the orthodox Buddhists of Burmah now-a-days believe were actually marked upon the feet of the founder of their religion, when he lived and moved and had his being upon earth. The senior priest of this vihára, Delgamuwe Terunwahansé, is a friendly hospitable old gentleman, well pleased with the visits of Europeans, of whom he never fails to inquire concerning Major Skinner. He evidently entertains an enthusiastic regard for the great Road-maker and exDirector of Public Works in Ceylon.

The village through which the main road passes at this place is called Tembiliyana, or Ekneligoda, the ancestral domain of the Ekneligoda family. From thence to within

*In the ordinary Turbinella rapa, the whorls run from left to right; but those called by the natives Wallampory, have the whorls reversed, running from right to left. These were regarded with such reverence that formerly they sold for their weight in gold. Even now specimens can scarcely be procured for less than four or five pounds sterling.

†The sacred hanza, or Brahmanee goose, is the national emblem emblazoned on the standard of Burmah; it has been from time immemorial an object of veneration there, as well as throughout all parts of India, including Ceylon.