the view splendid. The path breaks off about half-way through the village a quarter of a mile back from the rest-house; no guide is necessary. The ascent lies first over a great slope of black rock, and as we rise the country opens out on all sides, showing wide spaces of jungle. Then we pass up steps under shady avenues of green, broken by the bare twigs of the templetrees, carrying their load of sweet-scented blossoms.

At the top we go through a brick gateway (muragé) and so on to the platform. From here there is a fine panorama, including many conical and oddly lumpy hills, rising abruptly from the sea of jungle even to the far distance. The great sugar-loaf near at hand, completely covered with trees and scrub, is Dahiya Kande, and from one point the odd mushroom-shaped rock of Sigiri, for eighteen years the capital of the kingdom, can be made out far to the north-east.

There are five temples altogether; the first stands detached and contains a recumbent statue of Buddha, forty-seven feet long, cut out of the solid rock. He rests on an ornamental pillow and the soles of the feet are carved with lotus flowers. On the rock face by the door is an inscription recording the virtues of King Nissanka Malla (A.D. 1198), whose statue is in one of the other caves. He is chiefly celebrated for his inscriptions, by which he propagated for the benefit of posterity the fame of his many virtues (see p. 196). These shrines are undoubtedly as ancient as the earliest foundation of the Buddhist religion in Ceylon, but they were brought prominently into notice by King Walagambahu (or Watagemunu),

104 B.C., who fled here to hide from the Tamils, almost immediately after he had succeeded to the throne. He remained in these great caverns where he had taken refuge, for about sixteen years, before he regained his throne and returned to Anuradhapura.

The mingling of Buddhism and Hinduism is very apparent in all these temples. The name of the first, Dewa Raja Vihara, means the “Temple of the Great God," a reference to Vishnu, and a statue of Vishnu in wood stands near the head of the Buddha, and is considered equally sacred, or even more so. The stone doorway is decorated, and near it is a carved cistern. The outside of all the rest of the caves is rendered hideous by a modern brick excrescence, a sort of verandah, of which the monks are exceedingly proud. The interiors are too gloomy to be managed photographically with success. The whole group of monks and neophytes, with the addition of a small boy who had attached himself to me as interpreter, followed me about pointing out the inartistic work that was being done as if it conferred special merit on themselves.

The next temple is large, and is a natural cave, sloping up and outwards. The whole of the roof is covered with fresco paintings, brilliant in gaudy colour, renewed from time to time. The Buddha is carved from the living rock, as is the case also in the succeeding temples, but the seated Buddhas, forming a semicircle round the inner wall behind the shrine, are of painted clay. In this cavern alone there are fifty-eight statues. The most interesting of the fresco paintings are at the back,

including some of Vishnu, always referred to by the monks as "god," and some showing the victorious Dutugemunu and dying Elala, the planting of the bo-tree and other scenes from the royal city; these are said to have been executed by monks from Anuradhapura. In this cave a vessel is placed to catch the clear water, which falls ceaselessly, drop by drop, throughout the year, even in the driest season, from one particular place in the roof.

The third temple, Maha Alut Vihara, or the "Great New Temple," is large also, and includes almost as many statues as the preceding one.

In making the tour of these temples it is well to be provided with plenty of small change, for though the priests of Buddha are not supposed to possess money or to accrete worldly goods in any form, they are not above eagerly indicating the collectionbox in every single cave visited. However, a very small piece dropped into one or two of the boxes satisfies them. The last two temples are small, and one of them, more modern than the rest, contains a statue of one of the latest Kandyan kings. The people in the village of Dambulla and around are nearly all Cingalese.

If we were going to Polonnaruwa, the later Cingalese capital, or to the great rock of Sigiri, we should, after Dambulla, turn off north-eastward on the Trincomalee road, but as these capitals can best be understood after a visit to Anuradhapura, it is wiser to go there first.

Continuing our way therefore, we run along a delightful road where handsome flowers may be noticed here and there in the jungle scrub; the most conspicuous is a creeper, which looks at a

distance like a vivid red honeysuckle, but on examination proves to be quite a different type. This is the Gloriosa superba, already mentioned, and fitly named, a royal plant, holding up a corona of frilled red tongue-like petals in the form of a cup. There are also bushes of wild hybiscus, showing white blossoms with splashes of purple in the centre, blossoms which burn bright pink as they fade. With the lantana, which appears by the roadside, is mingled a blue flower rather like lavender, forming an excellent contrast. Also very frequently to be noticed is a bush with snow-white leaves scattered irregularly amid the ordinary green ones; it is related to the poinsettia tribe. With all this decorative colouring, there is no lack of variety by the way.

If possible a détour should be made from Kekirawa, twelve miles from Dambulla, to visit Kala-Wewa, one of the large stand most important of the restored tanks of the ancient kings. This was made by King Dhatu Sena (A.D. 459), and will ever be associated with his touching plea to be allowed to bathe there once more before his death as already described on p. 26. There is a rest-house at Kekirawa, but any meal required should be ordered beforehand. Thence it is about five miles to the brink of the tank on foot, and a couple of miles further by road. The tank as originally made and planned was enormous, the water laving the foot of the rock at Dambulla. Though considerably curtailed now, having been ruined by the bursting or destruction of the embankment at some unknown date, it is still large, forming a sort of double or twin-tank, with a total area of about seven square miles. It receives the

water from the central hill country by means of channels, and in turn is connected with Anuradhapura by a winding canal, the Yoda-ela, or Giant's Canal, between fifty and sixty miles long, due also in its origin to King Dhatu Sena, who had magnificent ideas and carried them out worthily. The canal joins up the great Tissa tank at Anuradhapura, and incidentally, on its way, supplies several village tanks.

The restoration of the tank took three years, and it was reopened in 1888.

A few ruins of a very early settlement at Vijitapura can be seen en route to the tank, and two and a half miles north-west of the spill-wall is an interesting tall rock-carved figure of Buddha in what must once have been a temple, the Aukana Vihara. The great bund on the western side of the tank and the enormous spill-wall are worth examining, as they speak perhaps more eloquently of the power and value of the ancient irrigation. work of the old kings, by which the great part of Ceylon was made cultivatable, than anything else. When the tanks fell into ruin, and irrigation was destroyed by the incursions of the Tamils, the jungle once more crept over the land, and its power to support a large population decreased correspondingly. It is only since the British took over the island that roads have been opened up, ancient tanks and channels restored, and the jungle cut down. This Vijitapura or Wijitapura has sometimes been identified with Wijito (see p. 22), besieged by Dutugemunu, but beyond the name there seems no evidence of this, and good authorities discredit it.