The king, while bathing in a pond, pretended to be drowning to see what his subjects would do. Two of them sprang in and rescued him. They were afterwards sent for--and executed! The pretext being they had presumed to lay hands on the king's sacred body! But in fact, presumably, because he could not bear the existence of anyone to whom he was under an obligation.

As year by year went by, Rutland and Knox planned their escape. They used to travel about and sell goods, extending their wanderings further and further north to gain familiarity with the country. The difficulty was the want of water. For beyond the zone of the rivers they were reduced to drinking from muddy pools fouled by animals, which gave them violent gripes. Besides this, at the limits of the king's territory, on all main tracks (and it was almost impossible to break through the jungle otherwise) were guards. At length, in October 1679, the pair managed to get as far as Anuradhapura, which Knox calls Anarodgburro, which was very near the limits of the king's territory.

"To Anarodgburro therefore we came, called also Neur Waug. Which is not so much a particular single Town as a territory. It is a vast green plain, the like I never saw in all the island, in the midst whereof is a lake, which may be a mile over, not natural, but made by Art, as other Ponds in the Country to serve them to water their corn grounds. This Plain is encompassed round with Woods, and small Towns among them on every side, inhabitated by Malabars, a distinct people from the Chingulays."

The comrades were brought before the governor, who required a good deal of talking before he was convinced that they were what they professed to be, namely prisoners allowed to go about trading (though they certainly would not have been allowed to wander to such a distance, had the king known it!). Finding it impossible, after reconnoitring, to get through the watch, stationed four or five miles out from the town, they turned back to the previous place they had come through, Colliwilla, whose governor they had satisfied by saying they were going off in search of deer's meat, promising to come back with it. But instead of going to Colliwilla they turned off about half-way, down a little stream Malwat Oya they had noticed, which they concluded must somehow find its way to the sea.

They had a terrible time on their way down. to the coast. They were torn and lacerated with thorns, in constant terror of being caught and sent back to Kandy by the inhabitants, whose voices they often heard quite distinctly in the jungle. They were in alarm at wild elephants, which abounded, and they were armed only with knives fastened to long stakes. They carried also:

Rice, flesh, fish, pepper, salt, a basin to boil our victuals in; two Calabasses to fetch water; two great Talipats (leaves of the Talipot palm) for tents, big enough to sleep under if it should rain, Jaggery (a kind of brown sugar), and sweetmeats, tobacco also and Betel, Tinder-boxes, two or three for failing, and a deer's skin to make us shoes."

They only wore waistcoats like the natives and had grown great beards.

They ran at one time into a "Parcel of Towns " and hid in a hollow tree. The river was full of alligators, and they encountered bears, hogs, deer, and wild buffaloes. At length, At length, as they descended, the river dried up, being only pools between sandy stretches, so they were able to walk in the bed of it; but even this had its drawbacks, as they had to take great care not to be seen, so they travelled by night, but when it was a "dark moon" they couldn't get on at all, “the River anights so full of elephants and other wild beasts coming to drink."

At last, after nearly a week, having started from Anuradhapura on a Sunday, they arrived at the Dutch fort of Arripe on the coast, on Saturday afternoon, and were warmly received. by the inhabitants, and sent first to Colombo and thence to Batavia, where they picked up an English ship.

On the way home Knox wrote his story, which was published through the East India Company. It is marvellous that having been so long away from civilisation, when apparently he had been unable to take any notes, he should have written down everything in such clear and detailed fashion, showing a wonderful memory.

His book gives a unique picture of the life of the Cingalese under the Kandyan kings. It is a wonderful contemporary record, and should be read by every one interested in Ceylon.

CHAPTER II

THE ROAD THROUGH THE JUNGLE

CEYLON is slung like a drop-pearl from the southernmost point of India. Where the major and minor axes cross one another, much nearer to the southern end than the northern, lies the hillcountry of which Kandy is the centre. Almost due north of Kandy, along the major axis, at some eighty-nine miles' distance, is Anuradhapura, which is just about half-way between Kandy and the north of the island.

The road between Kandy and Anuradhapura is itself bisected at Dambulla, where the main highway from Colombo to Trincomalee crosses it diagonally. Those who go to Anuradhapura by road will find Dambulla a convenient half-way house, but those who go by rail from Colombo do not visit Kandy at all. They start on the Kandy line, but change at Polgahawela junction some hours short of Kandy, and go directly north to Anuradhapura. The best train in the day, starting in the cool of the morning, catches a direct connection at the junction, and the journey takes five hours and a half. The scenes passed through are pleasant enough though not wildly exciting. The natives working in their paddy

fields, the buffaloes, with the little white cranes in attendance on them, and the palm and plantain plantations show many a peaceful picture, and beyond Polgahawela the line runs on straight through mile after mile of jungle of infinite tangle and variety, where masses of a bell-like flower are here and there broken by flashes of the royal red Gloriosa superba.

In the little clearings for paddy almost invariably there is a small thatch and mat shelter, raised on rickety-looking bamboo posts, in which the owners can sit in safety to scare wild creatures from the crop, and in the great tanks covered with lotus flowers lie the ungainly water buffaloes with only their heads showing.

The best time to visit Ceylon is not in the last but the first months of the year, and those who come earlier must be prepared to face some rain, more or less according to whether the monsoon, beginning in October, has already exhausted itself or not.

The roads are, as a whole, excellent, though sometimes narrow. Every motorist should manage to get hold of that fascinating, but curiously unequal, book Fifty Years in Ceylon,' by Major T. B. Skinner, because it is to Skinner we owe many of the main roads. He came out to Ceylon in 1818 as a lad of fourteen, and received a commission in the Ceylon Regiment, though he was so small that his full-sized sword was a serious embarrassment. When sent up-country and told to make a road with a gradient of " one in twenty," he had not the slightest idea what was meant ! 1 W. H. Allen & Co. 1891.