by others elsewhere, and the traffic on the main lines of communication throughout the island will be as completely revolutionized in the course of a few years, as has already been the case with that between Kandy and Colombo, by means of the Railway.

The first stage for halting at, after leaving Awissawela, is Puswella.* The road undulates along the base of forestclad hills, or through tracts of paddy lands, and presents nothing remarkable, beyond the paintings on the walls of a way-side Ambalama,† which represent, among other things, Buddha striding from the top of Adam's Peak, after indenting there the print of his left foot, to Siam, where he in like manner left the impression of his right foot ‡ The resthouse at Puswella is perched on the summit of knoll, a little distance off the road, and affords a fair amount of accommodation. A secluded pool, a stone's throw behind. the resthouse, at the foot of a small and shady glen into which a rocky stream pours its crystal waters, is a capital bathing place, a desideratum not always obtainable at a roadside resthouse in Ceylon.

* 'Pus,' a kind of jungle creeper; 'wella,' a tract of sand. † A native resthouse.

"The Siamese," says Baldæus, "exhibit a footstep impressed upon a stone on a mountain, which is an ell and a half long and three-fourths broad. The sides of it are covered with silver; and a magnificent temple is erected in the neighbourhood, round which many of the priests of the country, and other people dwell,"

P

Beyond Puswella, and near the 48th mile post from Colombo, is the river Kuru-ganga, a principal tributary to the Kalu-ganga. By diverging to the left of the main road at the village Higgaha-héna,* about half a mile before. reaching the bridge, a walk for a mile and a half through alternating paddy fields and cocoanut plantations will bring one opposite the Kuruwita waterfalls, which are well worthy of inspection. At the time of our visit the waters were high, and the Kuru-ganga was rushing along its bed with a dangerous velocity. From a gap in the rocky ridge that faced us, and which formed an almost mountainous embankment to the river, a broad volume of water thundered down and leapt in broken masses of ever-changing form from rock to rock, until, after a fall of a hundred and fifty feet "the torrent with the many hues of heaven"

that

"flung its lines of foaming light along,"

surged against and mingled with the stream that hurried past to swell the waters of the Kalu-ganga.

Besides the waterfall there are in this and an adjacent range, two remarkable caverns, or grottoes, or subterranean passages, six or seven miles apart from each other, the

* Hína, or chena, a high jungle ground, cultivated at intervals, upon which originally grew the Hik, or Hulanhik trees, Chickrassia tabularis, AD. JUSS.

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 Katutiyambaráwa vihára. We found it to be of modern date, having been built by Ekneligoda Di-áwa, 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