4o6 Voyage of the Novara. 



feet high, one of the loftiest peaks in Ceylon, where, accord- 

 ing to tradition, the founder of the Buddhist doctrine, when 

 last he visited the earth, in answer to the supplications of a 

 priest, left behind the print of his footstep {Sri-pada), as a 

 visible sign of his presence. 



We cite, in the following extract, the most prominent 

 features of this venture, as supplied by the two members 

 of the Expedition who undertook it, so as to complete the 

 description of the Novara' s visit to Ceylon : — 



" On 13th January, 1858, we proceeded from Colombo to 

 Ratnapoora, en route, to visit Adam's Peak, a tolerably long 

 and tedious journey. On the margin of a river we en- 

 countered an elephant, who was engaged in assisting the 

 labourers on the public roads in that vicinity. While our 

 car and the baggage were being embarked here, and again 

 put in order, this animal went through a number of tricks, 

 such as swaying to and fro, lying down, raising his trunk, 

 and trumpeting, the latter of which, at a sign from his driver, 

 he did with a vengeance, and for so doing was rewarded 

 with a few plantains. These exercises seem to constitute 

 the first steps in taming, as they were gone through in a 

 similar manner by all the elephants we afterwards saw, 

 whether employed like this one in task-work, or maintained 

 for show, or made use of in the Temple service. 



At mid-day we reached Ratnapoora, and as we were 

 anxious to shorten as much as possible our next day's 

 journey, we decided on pushing forward in the course of 



