luxury described in the Mahawansa. The comings and goings of these men in obedience to the royal orders and commands, the constant changing of the soldiers and ministers, and the arrival of the tax-collectors with their money, would make a never-ceasing stream of ascents and descents along the winding levels of the marvellous rock. There, high above all, on his rose-coloured throne, sat Kasyapa, administering justice while he carried the black spot of death in his heart; we cannot believe his judgments erred on the side of mercy! Always, from the heights looking out over that tangled sea, where the jungle-fowl call and the incessant " poop, poop" of the woodpecker arose then as now, the King would watch for the glitter of spears and the crash of an oncoming army breaking its way through all impediments to bring down vengeance on his guilty head. And it came! Whether, weary of his stately self-imposed imprisonment, Kasyapa recklessly descended from his fortress to meet his brother, or whether, lulled by the security of his eighteen years of power (just as long as his father had reigned), he began to lose his fears, and was caught off the alert, we do not know. But the Mahawansa tells us that he did face his elder brother Moggallana in the plains not far from Kurunegala, where the " two armies met like two seas that had burst their bounds." A fierce conflict ensued, and when Kasyapa saw that he was getting the worst of it he cut his throat, a not uncommon means by which the vanquished escaped the indignity of being made prisoner. Moggallana therefore became king. He estab lished himself at Anuradhapura, and Sigiriya fell into decay. It is associated only with the reign of one king. For all his delay in revenging his father's death, Moggallana was not a cold-blooded man; it is said that when he saw those who had followed the slayer of his father, the sight drove him into such a red rage that he gnashed his teeth furiously, so that one hereafter protruded and he acquired the name of Rakkhasa, meaning the demon. There has been a great deal of discussion over the interpretation of this passage; Mr. Wijesinha supposes it to be an allusion to the curved teeth or tusks that demons are popularly supposed to possess. Passing from the granite throne southward, we come to the great tank on the summit, which supplied the water to the population living there; this is quite a fair-sized piece of water even now, though choked up by reeds, and when kept clean must have provided an abundant storage replenished by the torrential monsoon rains. We can wander round the whole summit, noting the backbone of passage in the centre, with byways starting from it on each side like ribs. When we finally descend, by the same road we came up, we can visit below the flat rock called the Audience Hall, near the Cistern Rock, and in between the two, underneath the latter, see an odd little cave-shrine. The place is a perfect fairyland; bushes with fern-like fronds waist and shoulder high complete an illusion of bracken-covered ground, and amidst them rise other bushes and shrubs completely covered with small orange-coloured fruit (Limonia alata) growing amid shining green laurel-like leaves; there are great white trumpet-shaped flowers (Datura fastuosa) and the Cassia fistula with its yellow bunches like giant laburnum. The ground is carpeted by a sensitive plant with tiny pink spiky flowers. Huge lumps of rock are flung anyhow amid green bowering foliage. Great trees have grown in some instances on the bare summits, and encompassed the sides in a network of scaly roots which stream downwards to seek sustenance in the ground. As I stood drinking in all the wonderful detail, a bird, like none that I had ever seen before, sprang into sight, chasing a brilliant-hued butterfly; it had a long forked tail, and its radiance reminded me of the monk's story in The Golden Legend. "And lo! he heard The sudden singing of a bird, A snow-white bird, that from a cloud "This species is called the Ceylon Bird of Paradise, but is really a kind of long-tailed flycatcher. There is a similar bird, only terra-cotta in hue, which is rather more common. The Cingalese call them Redi-hora, meaning cloth-stealer, for as the tail is five times longer than the body, it looks as if the bird were flying away with a long piece of cloth." It is a famous shooting country all round here, bears and leopards, sambhur (elk) and many other large animals range in the depths of the jungle, but we shall hear more of these at Polon naruwa. 1 Eleven Years in Ceylon, by Major Forbes. (Bentley. 1841). The dagaba at Sigiriya, not more than a hundred yards from the driving road, and three-quarters of a mile from the rock, was opened out and investigated in 1910, and in the treasure-chamber the principal object found was a small Maha-merugala, or round pedestal of stone, 1 ft. 3 in. in height, varying from 5 in. at the bottom to 51 at the top in diameter. It has three raised rings around it and is completely carved with human figures. The chief interest lies in the fact that the scenes depicted are village scenes showing houses and family life. The size of the bricks used in the dagaba carries testimony that it was built several centuries before the Polonnaruwa stupas. Besides this there are, around in the jungle, many evidences of that larger city which grew up at the foot of the rock. There are an immense number of caves in the gigantic boulders, and there are the remains of five "moated islands" lying to the west of this outer city. These may have been pleasure houses, or pavilions, with the earth dug out around them to make them into artificial islands for the adornment of a great park such as princes and people loved. CHAPTER XII POLONNARUWA: THE JUNGLE CITY THERE is great diversity of opinion as to the respective charms of the two royal cities, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. In favour of the former may be counted its much greater antiquity. From 500 B.C. on to the middle of the ninth century A.D. Anuradhapura held the proud position of the capital, and even when, owing to the incursions of the Tamils, the kings then removed the seat of Government to Polonnaruwa, Anuradhapura never lost its glamour of peculiar sacredness. Polonnaruwa remained the capital, with a slight break, up to the end of the thirteenth century, or only about a third as long as the sister city. Anuradhapura can also boast a far greater extent of ruins, and though excavations at Polonnaruwa are more recent, it is not at all probable that it will ever be able to rival her in this respect. For sheer beauty of landscape Anuradhapura must be accorded the palm. In other respects the claims balance equally; some people find the access by railway and the comforts of the hotel at the older city preferable, while to others the remoteness and inaccessibility of Polonnaruwa, and the simplicity of its rest-house, are additional |