tton-tree covered with crimson flowers. We
passed thousands of bullock carts bringing down coffee from the estates
in the interior, and carrying up rice and other provisions and articles
required on them. They are small, dark-coloured, graceful little
animals, with humps on their backs, and legs as slender as those of a
deer. The carts they draw are called bandys. They are rough
two-wheeled vehicles, with a covering of plaited cocoa-nut leaves.

We were now gradually ascending, the cottages of the natives being
surrounded by coffee bushes, with their polished green leaves and
wreaths of jessamine-like flowers, instead of palm-trees as in the low
country. The latter part of the road wag most magnificent, combining
the grandeur of the Alps with the splendour of tropical vegetation.

"Some Kandyan prophet had foretold," Mr Fordyce informed me, "that the
kingdom of Kandy would come to an end when a bullock should be driven
through a certain hill, and a man on horseback should pass through a
rock."

This prophecy has been fulfilled, for we passed along a tunnel under the
hill, through which thousands of bullocks have been driven, and under an
archway in the rock.

Kandy is a comparatively modern city, having only become the capital of
the kingdom about A.D. 1592, since which time it has been frequently
burned. It stands closely surrounded by mountains, on the banks of a
lake constructed by the last King of Kandy, in 1807. The habitations of
the people were most wretched, as the king alone, and members of the
royal family, enjoyed the privilege of having glazed windows, whitened
walls, and tiles; the palace, and some of the Buddhist temples, are the
only ancient edifices which remain, and even these are crumbling to
decay. The chief temple was one built to contain the tooth of Buddha.
Not that the original tooth really exists, because that was burned by
the Portuguese. The present relic worshipped by all the Buddhists is
more like the tooth of a crocodile than that of a man. It is preserved
in an inner chamber, without windows, on a table, and is concealed by a
bell-shaped covering, overspread with jewels.

The view from the side of the mountains above Kandy, looking down on the
city with its temples, and palaces, and monuments, and its brightly
glancing lake surrounded by hills, is very beautiful. In the lake is a
small island, with a picturesque building on it, now used as a powder
magazine. A road winding