the District, near to which is the small episcopal place of worship, called by courtesy, the church. On the right of the road is the gaol; beyond which, receding towards the bank of the river, are the resthouse and the Government Hospital. These are both newly erected, commodious buildings; and at the back of the former, fringing the high river-bank, is a luxuriant grove of nutmeg trees. Within the walls of the small fort, surmounting a rocky hillock, about 114 feet above the level of the sea, are the Government Kachchéri, in which a meteorological observatory has lately been established, the District Court, and other official buildings. This fort was formerly a military station; but the troops have been withdrawn; and the Police, who have a station and barracks further on, now guard the Kachchéri, and discharge the duties formerly entrusted to soldiers. The situation of the city is considered healthy; there is an excellent bazaar; and a Roman Catholic chapel in a very central position. In the suburbs there are many pleasantly detached bungalows, the residences of the Judge, the lawyers, and other leading inhabitants. An ancient mosque, indicates that the faith of Islam is no very recent profession amongst a section of the community, the majority of whom it may be presumed, from the neighbouring viláras, and the great Saman Déwálé, are Buddhists and Hindus. Strings of bullock bandies continually pass up and down the road; either on their way to planting districts Badulla-wards, or with coffee to Colombo; or to and from the stores of an enterprising British Colonist, the depôt for the traffic on the river, the southward rival of

the road: taken altogether, the city has an aspect of busy thriving industry, which may be considered an index of the prosperity of the District of which it forms the capital.

Many lofty mountain groups and ranges tower around, and radiate from the point where Adam's Peak is seen. Amongst these, a few miles to the northeast of Ratnapura, is Mount Karangoda, the view from the summit of which is magnificent. Bennet, in chapter xlvii. of his work on Ceylon, gives the following description of its temple and

scenery.

"The ascent to the first landing is by some hundreds of broad steps, hewn in the solid rock, which is covered with jungle, and pine apple plants, whose leaves are from five to six feet in length, a proof of the effect of shade upon that plant. Upon the first landing is the residence of the priests, an extensive and substantial stone building, having a large interior square, with wide and covered verandahs, into which the dormitories open.

"A similar but less inclined flight of rock steps leads to the second landing place, where a rock vihára displays Buddha's recumbent image, surrounded as usual with Hindu deities, and having an oblong table before it profusely covered with flowers. But the chief attraction to the European is a well of the purest water, of so very cold a temperature, that in five minutes a bottle of claret was cooled as well as if an experienced Hopdar [butler] had iced it.

"From hence the approach to the summit is extremely rugged, and covered with the gigantic groundsel (Senecio

gigantens) exceeding twenty feet in height, jungle and grass; both well tenanted with snakes and land leeches; but one is amply rewarded for toil, trouble, and even danger, by the magnificent panorama which, on gaining the crown of the mountain, bursts upon the view. Here, castellated Ratnapura, and surrounding country, interspersed with every variety of champaign, undulating, and hilly land, intersected by the meandering and (for boats) navigable Kalu-ganga; there, the Peak towering high above the clouds to the northeastward, and the various villages dispersed upon the banks of the river and its tributary streams, bordered by extensive areka, kettule, and cocoanut topes, with occasional patches of intervening jungle, scattered among verdant tracts of pasture land, as if by way of contrast to the golden glare of paddee and mustard fields in their approaching maturity; and everywhere teeming with abundance; the nearest plains covered with innumerable herds of bullocks and buffaloes, and the distant ones with deer and elephants." The route from Ratnapura to the Srí-páda commences near the 57th mile-post, in a path which strikes to the north just before the road crosses the Ratnapura bridge-a threespan iron latticed structure, each span 140 feet in length, with a roadway 18 feet in width.

Our arrangements having been completed overnight, we thought to have started by daylight on the morning of the 26th March. But our interpreter, and chair-bearers, and commissariat coolies and other servants, were by no means so anxious as ourselves for the trip, and it was not until

8 A. M. that we were all fairly off. A rather ludicrous occurrence took place immediately before. Our host's appu, who went by the name of the Angel Gabriel, hearing his master (our commissary general) inquire about the supply of tea, in order that nothing might be wanting to ensure every requisite for making that refreshing beverage while on the road, detained one of the coolies until he had boiled a large kettlefull of water, with which he made a final addition to the man's load, and it was just a chance that it was discovered, and the boiling water emptied out, before the man set off.* Descending from the road (a pretty stiff embankment forming the approach to the bridge) we struck briskly across the field and were soon into the jungle, where we mounted our chairs,-arm-chairs with stout bambus tied to the sides, each one borne by four coolies. The chair that fell to my lot,

ment.

* On our two subsequent journeys our start was here delayed. The cause of the first I give in the words of one of my companions:-"We made our start from Ratnapura in rainy weather, and with about fifteen or twenty coolies to carry our baggage, we headed up towards the Peak. A trick of one of the coolies just after starting caused us some amuseWe had some difficulty in getting the number of men we wanted, and this one was the last whom we obtained. As he came last, he found a load awaiting him which many of the others had tried the weight of, and left as being rather too heavy for their tastes He trudged along behind us with his box, still lagging more and more in the rear, and soon after we turned off on to the pilgrims' track, we lost sight of him altogether. The interpreter was sent back to hurry him on, and sometime after returned with another coolie carrying the load, and told us the

however, soon gave way, my weight cracking the bambu which supported it; and not being accustomed to such means of progression, we found them so uncomfortable in rounding sharp rocky corners, and in going up and down ascents and descents, and we had to make such frequent dismounts at the frail bridges placed across watercourses and ravines"edandas," i. e. logs of trees, many of them half rotted, with a loose swinging bambu or length of jungle creeper for a handrail, --that when we had proceeded about five miles, and came to a bend of the Kalu-ganga, which we had to cross, we sent them back to Ratnapura, and performed the rest of our pilgrimage on foot.

The footpath passes through a considerable, well-cultivated tract of paddy lands, until it reaches Godigamuwa, when it skirts the base of a range of hills which abuts upon the Kaluganga, here called the Ratmone-ella. On the opposite side are the mountains Batugedarakanda and Kaṭugala. The river runs rapidly down the narrow intervening valley, and at

first one had left the box in the road and had bolted. Evidently the fellow, on finding that our way turned off towards Adam's Peak, had, with a sagacity and discrimination that di credit to his intellectual powers, determined to run all risks rather than carry his box to the top of the Peak, and had set down his load and made tracks." On the third journey, the coolie we had despatched from Colombo with provisions, four days previously, failed to make his appearance, and after waiting for him in vain for twenty-four hours, we had to proceed with such provender as we could procure at the bazaar.