fact, a long rough rocky staircase. We were, to speak mathematically, ascending the terms of an infinite seriesof steps. . . .On nearing the top and getting on the rockcut steps, by the sides of which the numerous chains lie intended to assist the ascent, the coolies who were accompanying us, evidently considering that our lives were only safe in their hands, made a frantic rush at us, caught hold and tried to hurry us at railway pace up the steps. We objected to this and preferred to take our own time. . . .Well! we reached the top and looked around at the prospect. The view was one of the thickest cloud, above us, below us, and all around. We were upon a little point of rock, a small air-suspended island in an ocean of mists. We knew that there were precipices around us, but we could not see them; that there was a wide stretching prospect below us, but it was all invisible. A strong westerly storm-wind blew in wild but fitful gusts, and howled and raved as it swept past us and beat on the rocky surfaces of the weather-assailed peak. . . . .When we were leaving to start on our excursion, we were informed that we should never reach the summit. It was impossible to do so in such weather, the fury of which was indicated by the fact that the iron chains at the top were so lashed by the tempest that their clanking could be heard two miles off. I believe that up to this hour one of my companions fondly clings to the belief in this statement. Indeed the idea is rather a poetic one, and creditable to the imagination that originated it. I think it is rather sublime to think of the mountain assailed by spirits of the storm;

rocking to its base when smitten by the tempest blows, and the chains swinging and clanking in harsh horrified accompaniment. The fiction is grand, but it is a fiction. They don't clank at all. Not a clank. They there lie and rust in motionless idleness, and would do so if all the tenants of the cave Eolus were to spend their utmost rage upon and around that high summit.*

"We strolled about the little enclosed platform, climbed up to the shrine, and examined the sacred foot-print. The latter is what Mr. Wackford Squeers would call a rum and a holy thing.' Still, I was not altogether satisfied with it. It is, I think, some five and a half feet long, but how is it that it is not bigger? Why do they stop at five and a half feet? This would only give a stature to Buddha or Sivá of some forty feet. But I like to think of Sivá as rather a tall party. Then, the shape of the thing? Why do they call it a foot-print at all? Certainly, by adding a lot of cement, and bits of tile, and by other devices, they have made it look something that may pass for being a very lame representation of a foot on a rather large scale, but who was the first imaginative genius who thought that that depression in the rock resembled a foot in any way?

* The chains certainly did not clank when the writer of the preceding sketch was on the Peak. But there is nothing to hinder them doing so, when the wind is blowing strongly from particular quarters, since they hang loosely down from their fastenings at the top of the cliff; and the natives positively assert that at such times they clank loudly.

The same mark might as well be the impression of any other part of the body as the foot. If Buddha or Sivá had sat down on the rock, the impression made by the divine comboy might have been not unlike that. Down at Palábaddala they show in the temple what they call a facsimile of the foot-print. The fact is, that it is no facsimile at all. It is perhaps the facsimile of what the foot-print ought to have been, if it was to preserve resemblance at all. The whole affair, with its patchwork of cement and tile, smacks of Brummagem rather too much. . . But yet we ought not to laugh at this specimen of superstition and credulity. There was a period when our own ancestors believed in the miraculous virtues of bits of the true cross,' at a time when there were enough pieces of wood in Europe under that name to have built a three-decker, and enough 'true nails' to have furnished the iron for engines, boilers, screw, anchors, cables, and standing rigging. We should think of these things, and not judge harshly of uneducated credulity.

"While we were upon the platform my attention was attracted by the devotions the coolies were paying to the shrine. They had brought with them some offerings, the flower shoots of some palms, and these they now laid reverentially before the foot-print. To see these poor coolies with such earnestness, and such apparent reverence and trust, make their lowly prayers, suggested to my mind many mixed reflections. It looked strange, contemplated from the stand-point of the sceptical nineteenth century. What with one side and the other, the claims of the one, the

scepticism and criticism of the other, they seem to have left so little for an honest man to believe in now; and yet these poor fellows seemed quite satisfied to believe that this was the foot-print of the great Buddha.”

On our third visit, we started from Heramitipána at earliest dawn, and although we thus missed the glories of the sunrise, we had the opportunity we hoped for of seeing the marvellous Shadow of the Peak projected above the lowlying mist clouds, and stretching beyond the bounds of the Island far away into the surrounding ocean. Faint, and not very clearly defined at first, as the sunlight became stronger, the outline and body of the gigantic pyramidshaped umbra grew sharper, darker, and more distinct; and as the sun rose higher in the heavens, the titanic shadow seemed actually to rise in the atmosphere; to tilt up and gradually fall back upon the mountain, shrinking and dwarfing in dimensions as it drew closer and yet closer to its mighty parent, until, absorbed in the forests with which the mountain is clad, it was wholly lost to view. So singular a sight,-one so strangely magnificent, and even awe-inspiring, can be seen nowhere else in the Island, perhaps nowhere else in the world.*

*The Rev. J. Nicholson, who made the ascent in 1863, thus describes this scene:-"As the sun rose in the heavens, each peak and hill gained a share of his rays, and threw its shadow upon its fellow, or into the valley; but the longest and the best was that thrown from the holy shrine. Right beyond, at an immense distance, the dark shadow was

As the mist and clouds dispersed, the extensive views that opened out became sublimely grand. North and east, below and beyond us, were range upon range of mountains, the valleys and slopes of which, from Maskeliya to Rambodde, from Dimbula to Haputale, were the homes of the enterprising men whose capital and industry have, within thirty years, made Ceylon the third, if not the second, largest Coffeeproducing country in the world. Sweeping round to the south were the similar ranges of Sabaragamuwa and the Morawak Kóralé, where, before similar energy and enterprise, the primæval forests have disappeared, and in their stead now grows the coffee bush. Down the sides of the mountains were seen the rushing waterfalls, the nearer ones broad bands of glistening foam, and those afar mere shining threads and filaments of silver as they shimmered in the light of day. To the south and west the circling ocean met the eye,—from Point-de Galle, soon to become the great steam-harbour of the Eastern world, to Kalutara, Colombo, Negombo and Chilaw, the sites of which, with the aid of a good glass and a map, could easily be made out ;-while in between lay the vast expanse of hill and dale, watered by the Kelani-ganga,

spread. Photographed as it were upon the clouds, as far as vision could reach, there was the picture of the sacred summit. With one hand I could cover a mountain, while the shadow from my small body was fear. ful indeed. I could hardly take it as a compliment if any friend were to express his desire to me-May your shadow never grow less!' But as that shadow shortened with the advancing light, we hastened on our homeward march."