relieved kept the enemy at bay by firing copper coins instead of grape shot. It was at Hanwella, after the abovementioned occurrences, that Sri Wikrama Rája Sinha, the last King of Kandy, directed an attack in person, on the 6th September, against the British forces; he having resolved, after the treacherous massacre of the troops at Kandy, on Major Davie's surrender on the 26th June, to invade the British territory and attack Colombo. After an engagement which lasted for two hours, the Kandians fled, headed by the king. During his retreat he ordered the heads of his two principal chiefs to be struck off, for their want of success, besides, in his rage at his defeat, indiscriminately slaughtering a multitude of his subjects, whose bodies were either cast into ravines or thrown into the river. A richly ornamented bungalow had been erected for his reception near Hanwella, previous to the engagement, in front of which two stakes were placed, on which, in the event of the capture of the fort, the English prisoners were to have been impaled. From the ridge that formed the ramparts of the fort the river view is one of the finest to be found in Ceylon. The stream sweeps grandly down in its course in a curve from southeast to northeast Where grateful falls the shade upon the fair twin shores, Where asoka, pátali, and domba graceful grow; And the sweet sugar-canes their slender stems uprear; * and an endless variety of magnificent forest trees and palms and bamboo clumps reflect from either bank their images in the lucent stream, while in the back-ground rise the purple hills, their summits veiled in clouds, or sharply outlined in the clear blue sky. A break down in our carriage was the cause of a day's detention here on our second journey. The village smith was however equal to the emergency, and while the repairs were being effected we strolled about the place, admiring the scenery, and listening to the somewhat monotonous if not doleful chants of the goyiyás† reaping their crops of kurakkan in the neighbouring fields and hill slopes. most refreshing bath in a secluded nook in the river just below the fort, was not the least pleasant of our enjoyments; and was moreover an excellent preparative for the capital dinner which "the Commandant" provided for us as the day drew to a close. A Between Hanwella and Awissawela the scenery is bolder and more varied than that already passed. Noble trees overarch the road, and plantations of jack, bread- and other fruit trees, indicate the industry of the inhabitants as well as the fertility of the soil. In the early days of British enterprise, the cultivation of the sugar-cane and the indigo plant was attempted on an extensive scale in the neighbourhood; the results were not however so profitable as were anticipated, and the luckless speculators soon abandoned the scene of their operations. A pleasantly situated resthouse on the slope of a hill, at the foot of which lies the village of Awissawela, affords the traveller an opportunity for halting and devoting a day to the inspection of Sítáwaka, where some interesting ruins, together with a rock temple on a mountain opposite, well repay the trouble of a visit. In the clear atmosphere of the season of the northeast monsoon, a fine view of the Peak is seen from the road near the resthouse. Twentyone miles distant in a straight line, it rises from behind a range of mountains, which, when the southwest winds prevail, bounds the prospect on the horizon to the southeast. The hills on either side the road converging to this point, there is an apparent gap on the sky-line, save when, as on the occasion of our catching a glimpse of the Peak during our September excursion (the only one we had except when on the Peak itself,) "a thousand cubits high The sloping pyramid ascends the sky." It then forms the central and most striking object in the scenery there beheld. |