murutas, champacs, and other trees, offerings of whose flowers form so remarkable a feature in the worship of the Sinhalese. The modest pansala in which the priests and their attendants reside is built in the hollow, and the ascent to the Wihara above it is by steps excavated in the hill. The latter is protected by a low wall decorated with mythological symbols, and the edifice itself is of the humblest dimensions, with whitened walls and a projecting tiled roof. In an inner apartment dimly lighted by lamps, where the air is heavy with the perfume of the yellow champac flowers, are the pilamas or statues of the god. One huge recumbent figure, twenty feet in length, represents Buddha, in that state of blissful repose which constitutes the elysium of his devotees; a second shows him seated under the sacred bo-tree in Uruwela; and a third erect, and with the right hand raised and the two fore-fingers extended (as is the custom of the popes in conferring their benediction), exhibits him in the act of exhorting his earliest disciples. One quadrangular apartment which surrounds the enclosed adytus is lighted by windows, so as to exhibit a series of paintings on the inner wall, illustrative of the narratives contained in the jatakas, or legends of the successive births of Buddha; the whole executed in the barbarous and conventional style which from time immemorial has marked this peculiar school of ecclesiastical art.

"As usual, within the outer enclosure there is a small Hindu dewale (which in this instance is dedicated to the worship of the Kataragam deviyo), and near to it grows

one of the sacred bo-trees, that, like every other in Ceylon, is said to have been raised from a seed of the patriarchal tree planted by Mahindo, at Anarajapoora, more than two thousand years ago. The whole establishment is on the most unpretending scale; for nine months of the year the priests visit the houses of the villagers in search of alms, and during the other three, when the violence of the rain prevents their perambulations, their food is brought to them in the pansala; or else they reside with some of their wealthier parishioners, who provide them once a year with a set of yellow robes."*

From the populous village of Galkissa the traveller enters the suburbs of the capital, and soon begins to find himself among the residences of the European inhabitants of Colombo. Chief among these is the mansion long known as Bagatelle, where a generation ago the father of the present senior member of the Ceylon Civil Service dispensed with lavish hand most liberal hospitalities. It is now the property of Mr. Charles De Soyza, only son and inheritor of the vast wealth of the Mudaliyar to whom reference was made when treating of Moratuwa. Rebuilt and extended, it is here that its opulent owner had the distinguished honor of entertaining His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh on the occasion of his visit to Ceylon in April of the present year [1870]. A drive of two miles along what is now called the

* Sir J. EMERSON TENNENT'S Ceylon, vol. ii. PP. 144-146.

† For an account of this entertainment, see Appendix N.

Kollupitiya* road, brings one on to the Galle Face, or Faas, so called by the Dutch from its being in front of the fortifications that faced the direction of Galle. This fine open space-the general parade ground for the troops, and great lung of Colombo, is nearly a mile in length, and half a mile or more in breadth, and is traversed by three excellent roads, -one in the centre, one by the sea-side, and one past the neat Gothic church belonging to the Church Missionary Society, the bridge leading to Slave Island, the Lake, and the Garrison Burial Ground; -all converging together and uniting in one that once led past the frowning Dutch batteries, the deep broad moat, and the quaint old gate, that gave access to the inner defences of the Fort of Colombo.

The road that once led past I write,-for while this work has been in hand, the fortifications of Colombo, or that portion of them which overlooked the Galle Face, have disappeared,have been razed and levelled with the ground; the moat. from whence the earth work of the batteries was originally dug has received back into its bosom the soil rent from it a century and a half ago; the pick and the mine and the mamoty† have so far restored the site of moat and mound to its pristine state, that no one now can say with Captain Anderson:

"Upon that further point of land,

See yonder frowning fortress stand,

* 'Kollu,' a kind of pulse used for feeding horses; 'pitiya,' a plain.

† A kind of short-handled hoe.

Whose mouldering but majestic walls
Its former grandeur yet recalls
As when the conquerors of the isle
First rear'd the firm commanding pile,
To keep their slippery footing sure,
An infant empire to secure;

To overawe a savage foe

And their superior science show.

Now like a veteran decay'd

Who once the sword of valour sway'd,
You trace upon its evening hour,

The vestige of its noontide power!”

There was a certain stern picturesqueness about the frowning old walls and massive batteries, with their embattled crests and grim gaping embrasures, and ancient guns, all of which modern science has rendered useless, but which of yore begirt the town with a cincture of impregnable strength; and one grew so accustomed to their appearance, that now they exist no longer, a feeling of regret at their destruction will occasionally obtrude itself upon the mind, especially as the work of demolition progresses, and day by day familiar objects are for ever lost to sight. The ancients of the place may mourn departed glories, as did the sages among the returning Israelites when they recollected the Jerusalem of their younger days; but the glory of the latter times, it was predicted, should exceed by far those of the former. It needs no prophet to make known the advantages to Colombo that must accrue from the changes which are being made. Like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, the city stript of its

warlike garniture, becomes daily more and more beautiful to view; and with the magnificent approach to it from Kollupitiya across the Galle Face, with its public and other buildings nestling as it were in the groves of Tulip trees that adorn and shade its broad and busy streets, it appears to the eye of the traveller one of the fairest and most pleasantly situated, as it certainly also is the healthiest by far of all the cities of the East.