ad
city, desolate and shrined in desolation. Even I, who knew nothing
of the past glories of Ceylon, could not help being possessed with
melancholy thoughts as I passed now a mass of deserted masonry, now a
broken column, the sole witnesses of generations gone for ever.
Some were very richly carved, but Nature's tracery was rapidly
blotting out the handiwork of man, the twining convolvulus usurping
the glories of the patient chisel. Still up we climbed, where hosts
of chattering monkeys swung from branch to branch, or poised
screaming overhead, or a frightened serpent rose with hissing mouth,
and then glided in a flash back through the undergrowth. One, that
seemed to me of a pure silver-white, started almost from under my
feet, and darted away before I could recover myself. We hardly
spoke; the vastness of Nature hushed our tongues. It seemed
presumption to raise my gun against any of the inhabitants of this
spot where man seemed so mean, so strangely out of place. Once I
paused to cut back with my knife the creepers that hid in
inextricable tangle a solitary and exquisitely carved archway.
But the archway led nowhere, its god and temple alike had perished,
and already the plants have begun their tireless work again.

"Between the stretches of wilderness our road often led us across
rushing streams, difficult to ford at this season, or up rocky
ravines, that shut in with their towering walls all but a patch of
blue overhead. Emerging from these we would find ourselves on naked
ledges where the sun's rays beat until the air seemed that of an
oven. At such spots the plain below spread itself out as a crumpled
chart, whilst always above us, domed in the blue of a sapphire-stone,
towered the goal of our hopes, serene and relentless. But such
places were not many. More often a threatening cliff faced us, or an
endless slope closed in the view, only to give way to another and yet
another as we climbed their weary length.

"Yet our speed was not trifling. We had passed a train of
white-clothed pilgrims in the morning soon after leaving Ratnapoora.
Since then we had seen no man except one poor old priest at the
ruined resting-house where we ate our mid-day meal. The shadow of
the forest allowed us to travel through the heat of the day, and the
thirst of discovery would have hurried me on even had the guides
protested. But they were both sturdy, well-built men, and suffered
from the heat far less than I did. So