it was the policy of the Kandyans to keep cities, a people so powerful and in some the interior inaccessible, so there were respects so wise as those old Singhalese only difficult paths through dense jungle; - themselves, we must remember, con. consequently, although Knox had written querors from northern India -- should of the wonderful ruins through which he have been driven from province to prov. had passed when making his escape from ince till all their old power and energy his long captivity in Kandy, they continued seems to have died out. unknown till they were rediscovered by The mischief seems to have begun when Lieutenant Skinner, about 1833, when sur- the king of Anuradhapura first took into veying for his great work of road-making. his pay mercenary troops from Malabar. At that time the site of the great city was These were the Tamils, whose descendthe haunt of vast herds of elephants, sam- ants remain to this day. They rebelled, bur and fallow deer, buffalo, monkeys, and slew the king, and held the throne for jackals. Porcupines and leopards sought twenty years. Driven from the island they shelter among the ruins, the tanks were returned, and again held it for forty years. alive with pelicans, flamingoes, and other Once more they were expelled, and once aquatic birds, and large flocks of pea-fowl more fresh hordes poured in from Malasought refuge in the cool shade, or sunned bar, and landing simultaneously on all themselves in the green glades where once parts of the island, again took possession were busy streets. Of course, with the of the capital, where some settled, while return of so many human beings, these others returned to the mainland laden with shy creatures have retreated to more se. plunder. During all these years an ever. cluded hiding.places. Here and there, on returning contest was maintained between the outskirts of Anuradhapura, there are the Buddhists and their Brahmin invaders. great heaps of stones – huge cairns – to There was the usual pulling.down and which, even to this day, each passer-by building.up of temples, so that by A.D. 300 must, without fail, add a stone, though the the native records declare that the glory people have long since utterly forgotten of the city was utterly destroyed, and the what event they commemorate. royal race of Children of the Sun had Imagine such a fate as this creeping been exterminated. Nevertheless it conover the great capitals where a bundred tinued to be a great powerful town, en. and sixty-five successive kings reigned in closed by strong walls. all the pomp and luxury of an Oriental The struggle with the Malabars contin. court. Their history has been handed ued till about A.D. 726, when the kings down to us in the Mahawanso, or “Gene. forsook Anuradhapura, and made Polloalogy of the Great," that precious manu. narua, farther to the south, their capital, script to which frequent reference is so and more beautiful than the old city. Still necessary to a right understanding of the Malabars pushed on, and overran every events in Ceylon. Its first section, which corner of the island. At length, A.D. was compiled about the year A.D. 470, 1155, a mighty king arose, by name Prak. from native annals, treats of the Great rama Bahu, who with a strong hand delivDynasty — i.e., the kings who reigned from ered his country, and driving out the 543 B.C. to 301 A.D. -- after which comes invaders, established peace and security. the history of those who are classed as the He rebuilt the temples of Buddha, and Sulu-wanse, or “lower race," although made or restored fifteen hundred tanks, that list includes the great King Prakrama and canals without number, to irrigate and Bahu, by whose orders the work was com- fertilize the thirsty land. Yet thirty years pleted up to his time — i.e. , 1266 A.D. after the death of this great, good man, Finally, it was carried on to the year 1758 his family had become so utterly weak A.D. by command of the last king of Kandy, through their incessant quarrels, that the all compiled from authentic native docu- Malabars once more returned and seized ments. Being written in Pali verse, none the tempting prize. And so the story of but the most learned priests could possibly strife continued till in 1505 the Portuguese read it, and, as a matter of fact, no one came, and then followed the further comseems to have been able to do so when plications of the struggles between Portu. in 1826 Mr. Turnour, of the Ceylon civil guese and Dutch, and later, the French service, set himself to master this terribly and English took their turn as disquieting difficult task, and with marvellous patience elements. and ingenuity succeeded in so doing. But the consequence of all these fight. Therein we obtain the clue to what at first ings was the removal of the seat of gov. seems such a mystery – how a race which ernment from one part of the isle to produced work so wonderful as these great another, so that in many a now desolate jungle there still remain some ruins of ancient cities which successively claimed the honor of being the capital for the time being. The oldest of these was Tamananuwara, which was the capital of Wijayo the Conqueror, B.C. 543. His successor founded Oopatissa-nuwara, calling it after himself. Then Maagama and Kellania had their turns before Anuradhapura asserted its supremacy. With the exception of eighteen years when Kaasyapa (the parricide and suicide) lived on the fortified rock of Sigiri, and one year when King Kaloona removed the capital to Dondra, or Dewa-nuwara, the City of the Gods, and likewise committed suicide, Anuradhapura reigned supreme for thirteen hundred and fifty-three years, when it was abandoned in favor of Pollonarua; three hundred years later Anuradhapura became the capital during one stormy reign, and Roohoona, Kalu-totta, and Kaacharagama were each the royal home for a brief interval. Then came the reign of the great King Prakrama, when the glory of Pollonarua was at its height, and continued the capital during the seventeen changes of sovereignty which followed in the twenty years after his death. From 1235 to the end of the century Dambadiniya was the chief city, then Pollonarua had another turn. After this, Kurunegalla, Gampola, Sengada-galla-nuwara, Kandy, and Cotta were successively the royal headquarters. Now one after another of these great cities has fallen into comparative neglect, and several into total oblivion. Giant trees have overgrown both palaces and markets; beautiful parasitic plants have loosened the great blocks of stone, and the dark, massive ruins are veiled by lovely creepers and all the wealth of tropical greenery, through which, as they did so recently in Anuradhapura, bears and leopards roam undisturbed, while birds of all glorious hues fit through the foliage. Only at the time of certain great festivals do devout pilgrims still wend their way through the silent depths of these dark forests, to do homage at these shrines, and the stillness of night is broken by their pious ejaculations as they circle round the huge relic shrines. At the time of our visit to Anuradhapura, the pilgrims had assembled in vast numbers to celebrate the festival of the midsummer new moon, and their simple camps — yellow tents of great taliput palm leaves, of which each pilgrim carries one section, to act as sunshade or umbrella - formed a very picturesque feature in the scene. Half-a-dozen pieces of leaf, supported by sticks, form the slight shelter which is all they need. (Many carry one of the tough fibrous sheaths, which has enveloped the young flower of the areca palm, and which serves as a simple rice plate, while an ingeniously folded Palmyra palm leaf forms an excellent water-bucket). With reverent steps they trod the green forest glades, marking the course of the main streets of the holy city, and guided by yellow-robed Buddhist priests. Many of the pilgrims carried small flags and banners, and one group carried a miniature ark containing a golden lotus blossom to be offered to the sacred Bo-tree. The ark, I may observe, holds the same place of honor in Ceylon as it does in many other nations. To all travellers in the Himalayas, the ark veiled with curtains, within which is concealed the idol most deeply reverenced, is a familiar object — an ark which is carried on staves through the forests, with music and dancing, and which, both in its proportions and in all the ceremonies connected with it, bears a strange affinity to the sacred ark of the Israelites.* We find it again in the churches of Abyssinia and in the Buddhist temples of Japan; and here in Ceylon, every important dewali (that is, every Malabar temple) has an ark precisely similar to that of the Himalayas, the sacred objects, which are so jealously concealed from the gaze of even devout worshippers, being in this case the mystic arrows of the particular god or deified hero there held in reverence. Once a year, at a great full-moon festival, this ark is borne forth on its staves, and carried in sunwise circuit round the temple, amid great rejoicing. That tiny ark, containing the mystic lotus blossom, was not the only link we noticed to the customs of far-distant lands. At the entrance to the Wata Daghe at Pollonarua lies a stone precisely similar to the Clach Brath at St. Oran's Chapel in Iona,† with a row of hollows, worn by the continual action of stone or crystal balls, which the passers-by turned sunwise to bring them luck. And here, in Anuradhapura, are three stone bulls, which women who have not been blessed with offspring also drag round sunwise, that they may insure the speedy birth of an heir. One of these seems to have formerly revolved on a pivot, but now main force does all. Certainly the most venerated objects of See "In the Himalayas," by C. F. Gordon Cumming, published by Chatto & Windus, pages 161-371, 436. See "In the Hebrides," page 72, by C. F. Gordon Cumming, published by Chatto & Windus. -a From The New Review. ace. THROWN ON PAPER, WHEN GALLOPING, FROM SATUR BY THOMAS CARLYLE. superstition are not often impressive 10 wandered alone through the labyrinth of the eye, and these are three insignificant grey pillars where only a flock of shaggy, little animals, measuring respectively three long-legged, reddish goats were nibbling feet six inches, two feet nine inches, and the parched grass, just as I have seen one foot seven inches. They lie on the British sheep finding greener pasture beturf beneath a great tree - a curious fore. neath the shadow of the mighty rock temground to a most picturesque pilgrims' ple of our own ancestors at Stonehenge. camp of yellow palm-leaves like gigantic fans, banked up with withered boughs ; women and children busy round their camp fires, and beyond the curling blue smoke rise the pillars of the Brazen Pal. EXCURSION (FUTILE ENOUGH) TO PARIS; Thousands of these primitive tents AUTUMN 1851 : were scattered about in groups in the park-like grounds, and I had the good DAY TO TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4-7, 1851. fortune to witness a very striking scene on the night of our arrival, when all night long, by the light of a glorious full moon, MONDAY morning was dim, and at 7 I great companies, guided by bare-armed was again awake; an unslept, weary man. and bare-footed yellow-robed priests, cir- Walk through the old streets, eastward cled round the Rúanweli dagoba, shouting and northward. Rue Neuve des Petits Saadhu! (the Buddhist form of All hail!). Augustins, &c., &c., to Place des VicBut in making their circle they kept their toires; places known to me of old : conleft side towards the relic shrine, which in trast of feelings seven and twenty years sunlore all the world over is the recognized apart: eheu, eheu! The streets had all form of invoking a curse instead of a got trottoirs, the old houses seemed older blessing. But on the beautifully sculp- and more dilapidated : crowds of poor. tured • moonstones” at the base of the looking people, here and there a wellgreat temple and palace stairs, all the ani: dressed man, going as if to his “office ” mals, elephants, oxen, horses, lions, and (bourgeois, in clean linen and coat); very sacred geese, have their right side towards small percentage of such, and all smoking. the central lotus blossom, so they are mak- Louis XIV. in Place des Victoires : “ Com. ing the orthodox sunwise turn. ment?" said I to two little dumpy men Just beyond these bulls are forty rows in white wide-awakes: “Est-ce qu'on of roughly hewn stone pillars, which even a laissé cela, pendant la République?” now stand twelve feet above the soil, and They grinned a good-humored affirmation. are doubtless sunk to a depth of many Homewards by the Palais Royal; said more - a strange and unique sight. In Palais Royal very dirty, very dim; hardly each row there are forty of these granite anybody in it: new in the southern part; monoliths, making sixteen hundred in all ; Louis Philippe's Palace made into an some have fallen, some are half buried exhibition place for Arts et Métiers. among the ruins, but there they are, and Emerge, then, after some windings and these are all that now remain above ground returnings, into the Rue St. Honore; to mark the spot where the stately Brazen heart of the old Louvre and Carrousel Palace once stood with all its crowds of almost gutted out, block of half-demol. learned priests. Of course there is not a ished buildings still standing ; very dusty, vestige of the copper which once covered very dim, all things. In the narrow streets the pillars, nor of the resplendent brazen and poor dark shops, &c., such figures tiles. I was told a legend – whether au- poor old women, little children, the forlorn thentic or not I cannot say - that the final of the earth. “How do they live?" one destruction of this grand building was due asked oneself with sorrow and amazement. to fire kindled by a queen who, when sore - Catarrh general still in our party, cabeset by Malabar armies, and seeing no tarrh or other illness universalin it.' Bet. hope of escape from beleaguering foes, ter get home as soon as possible ? resolved that at least they should not After breakfast, with Lord Ashburton to enjoy the pillage of the palace, and so call on General Cavaignac, whom we un. caused all her most precious possessions derstood to be in town, of all Frenchmen to be brought here and heaped together, the one I cared a straw to see. Rue Housand having with her own hands set fire to saié where it joins as continuation to Rue this costly funeral pyre, thereon sought Taitbout, north from Boulevard des Itadeath. Now the desolate ruins are for liens; there in a modest-enough locality saken alike by priests and worshippers. I was the General's house. “Gone to the country (aux Départements), uncertain whither, uncertain when; clearly no Cavaignac for us!" We drove away again, disappointed in mind tant soit peu. Lift the top from the carriage, let me drive through the streets with you, and sit warm and smoke, while you do business: " that was my proposal to Lord Ashburton, who gladly assented: agreed to wait at his "club" (Club of Frenchmen chiefly, and of some Etrangers, near the Boulevards, - quite "empty at this time); home for a warmer coat, coachman and lackey to doff the carriage-roof and after some waiting we all duly rally (at Rue de la Paix I, at said club Lord Ashburton) and roll away eastward and into the heart of the city. Pleasant drive, and the best thing I could do to-day. Boulevards very stirring, airy, locomotive to a fair degree, but the vehiculation very light. Looked at the exotic old high houses; the exotic rolling crowd. Barrière St. Martin; turn soon after into the rightward streets, shops, lapidary or other, Lord Ashburton has to call at; I remain seated; learn we are near the Temple; decide to go thither. Old, pale-dingy edifice, shorn of all its towers; only a gate and dead wall to the street. Policeman issues on us as we enter; stony eyes, villainous look, has never heard of Louis XVI., or his imprisonment here. "Non, monsieur!" but from the other side of the gate comes an old female concierge who is fully familiar with it; she, brandishing her keys, will gladly show us all. Building seems totally empty a police station in some corner of it, that is all. Garde Mobile lived in it in 1848, before that it was a convent (under the Bourbons); Napoleon had already much altered it; filled up (comble) one storey of it, in order to make a pièce d'eau (not quite dry) in the garden. Old trees still up to their armpits there: a very strange proceeding for a pièce d'eau ! Damp, brown, and dismal, all these emptinesses; grass growing on the pavements; big halls within (a grand royal hotel once, after the Templars ceased from it); on the second floor (once third?) the royal prisonapartments, religiously kept, are still there. Marie Antoinette's oratoire; the place of Cléry's scene of adieu : a grim locality in deed! Garde Mobile had drawn emblematic figures with burnt stick, in a few instances they had torn the walls, and made ugly big gaps with their bayonets. Our old concierge called the primitive republicans (in reference to Louis) "gueux," accepted our three francs with many courtesies, and so we left the Temple, a memorable scene in one's archives. - an ar Bronze-dealer next, manufacturer rather, the greatest, (soi-disant) de l'univers: Lord Ashburton in want of such things went in, I with him, and we walked through various long suites of pendules, statuettes, chandeliers, &c. &c., dent, greedy, acrid-looking person (he of "l'univers ") escorting us; almost frantic with the desire to sell to a milord for money. A vehement lean creature, evidently of talent in his kind, and of an eagerness I have not seen such an hungry pair of eyes. We bought nothing; I would not have had a gift of anything I saw there, the best de l'univers: “ tantis non egeo!" Out at last, and I decided not to enter any other, but to sit outside and smoke. Next place, a still finer bronze concern; indisputably de l'univers, she seemed of royalist disposition, cut us off a bit of room-paper for souvenir, but I wouldn't enter; sat smoking pleas. antly in an old quaint street (Quartier du Temple somewhere) for three-quarters of an hour, and bought a glass of vin ordinaire (1d.) in the interim, and another for cocher, who seemed charmed and astonished. That suited me better than bronzes. But Lord Ashburton did buy a pendule and some fire or hearth apparatus here, all being so extremely good, and the chief man of the establishment, whom I soon after saw at the Hôtel Meurice delivering his goods, seemed to me again a decidedly clever, sagacious, courageous, broad, and energetic man. Mem. I had been in a Bookseller's (on Saturday), the cut of whose face indicated some talent, and a similar sincerity of greed and eagerness. A reflection rose gradually that here, in the industrial class, is the real backbone of French society; the truly ingenious and strong men of France are here, making money, - while the politician, &c., &c., class is mere play-actorism, and will go to the devil by and bye! "Assuredly," as Mahomet says. - We returned by Marché des Innocents, by Rue St. Honoré and many streets, which to look upon was a real drama to me, — so many queer stone objects, queer flesh-and-blood ones, seen just once and never again at all! Home about 5, to dine with Lady Sandwich at 7; I flung myself on bed, and actually caught a few minutes of sleep. Lady Sandwich's dinner was wholly in the French fashion, this was its whole result for me, to see such a thing once. Company, besides us two who entered first Marquis Villa-real, a thick Portuguese man with big hoary head, and bor ing black eyes (glitter of black glass), a fast that Lord Ashburton should go with sturdy man, long ambassador in England me on Thursday, the Lady to stay be – spoke English — had he had anything bind till Saturday, while her cold mended, to say for me : M. and Mme. Thiers, ma. and then come. Très bien. Lady Sanddame a brunette of forty, pretty enough of wich has a second dinner for us to-day; her kind, an insignificant kind, hardly out of which I apologise; to dine simply spoke with her; lastly, a Scotch Miss at four, and will keep myself peaceabiy at Ellice (" Bear's "); and our two “distinc. home. [Pause here: have to go to the tions,” Mérimée and Laborde, with a Strand with an umbrella! Monday, 6 Comte (something) Roget, a poor thin Oct., 1851.] man with two voices, bass and treble alter- Tuesday, 30 September, after breakfast nating, who said almost nothing with (then, I think) call on the Brownings, very either of them. Kickshaws, out of which sorry they that I am bound for home per. I gathered a slice of undone beef, wines haps to-morrow, at any rate next day; will enough, out of which a drop of good sherry come to them to tea“ if possible." At and tumbler of vin ordinaire; talk worth Meurice's, Mérimée again to take Lord nothing, tolerable only had one not been Ashburton to some show of ancient armor: obliged to manufacture French. Women I decline to go; stay there, ad lounge and men together, all suddenly rise from in talk with Lady Ashburton, who knits. table, pushing back their chairs with fra- “ Attaché to French Embassy," name forcas; then to the drawing-room for cof- gotten or never known, thin, half-squintfee and talk with Thiers and Mérimée, ing, insignificant, brown-skinned young who said or could say nothing notable, Parisian; - 1 go out to call on Lady heartily glad to get away, with twenty Sandwich ; dinner in prospect there, and drops of some soporific liquid (" jeremy lamentations over mine and everybody's a laudanum preparation) from the good old sickness. Dine at 4, on frugal starved lady which was to make me sleep. Eheu! beef with one glass of sherry; Lord Ash. - Mérimée sat again in the drawing. burton to dine below with certain Bruces room at Meurice's; got upon German (Lord Aylesbury's son and femme who is literature: “Jean Paul, a hollow fool of Sidney Herbert's sister) who are just the first magnitude ;” “Goethe the best, come: enter said Lady Bruce, pretty but but insignificant, unintelligible, a paltry unbedeutend; enter Bruce, big nose, Enkind of scribe manqué (as it seemed): ". glish noisy say.nothing; enter finally an I could stand no more of it, but lighted a Englishman who knows me, whom I cancigar and adjourned to the street. “ You not recollect to know, who proves at last impertinent blasphemous blockhead !” to be Sheridan (Mrs. Norton's brother): this was sticking in my throat; better to talkee, talkee, nichts zu bedeuten. I withretire without bringing it out! such was draw to Browning's before seven. Great the sin of the Jews, thought I ; the assay welcome there; and tea in quiet; Brownof so much that goes on still, "crucify ing gives me (being cunningly led to it) him, he is naught!” – for which they still copious account of the late "revolutions sell “old clothes." Good-humored banter at Florence, - such a fantastic piece of on my return in, Mérimée being gone : Drury-lane “revolution" as I have seldom then to bed, - and sleep, alas! no sleep heard of. With all such “revolutions at all! A plunging and careering through may the devil swiftly fly away! Home chaos and cosmos, through life and through soon after ten; remember nothing of what death, all things high and low huddled I found there ; – to bed, and happily get tragically together; now in my poor room some reasonable sleep. Weather has now at Scotsbrig (so quiet there, beside my broken into showers. Lady Sandwich's poor old mother!), now at Chelsea, now dinner (an English party in honor of us) beyond the moon: I did not sleep till six, has consisted mainly of Sir (is he that?) and then hardly for an hour, such the Henry Bulwer, whom I never saw and noises, such my nerves. The "jeremy care little about seeing. (ten drops of it) had rather done ine mis- Wednesday morning, damp walk; Nechief, the other ten I poured out of win- ro's collar and string (gift for my wife), at dow. Towards morning one practical the top of Rue de la Paix: cigars a little thought rose in me, that I could get home farther on, one or two, very bad, dear again in a day; that I had no work here, as in England. Settled now that Lord and ought to get home! Out after eight, Ashburton is to go with me tomorrow, up Rue de la Paix, down towards Obelisk through in one day; the Lady to wait "tili of Luxor again; bought an indicateur des Saturday” when probably she will be able Chemins de Fer. It was settled at break. I to follow. Très bien. Donothingism for : |
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