io8 The Wild Elephant 



Komegalle is the resort of Buddhists from the re- 

 motest parts of the island, who come to visit an ancient 

 temple on the summit of the great rock, to which access 

 IS had from the valley below by means of steep paths 

 and steps hewn out of the solid stone. Here the chief 

 object of veneration is a copy of tlie sacred footstep 

 hollowed in the granite, similar to that which confers 

 sanctity on Adam's Peak, the towering apex of which, 

 about forty miles distant, the pilgrims can discern from 

 Aetagalla. 



At times the heat at Komegalle is intense, in conse- 

 quence of the perpetual glow diffused from these granite 

 cliffs. The warmth they acquire during the blaze of 

 noon becomes almost intolerable towards evening, and 

 the sultry night is too short to permit the rocks to cool 

 between the setting and the rising of the sun. The 

 district is also liable to occasional droughts when the 

 watercourses fail, and the tanks become dry. One of 

 these calamities occurred about the period of my visit, 

 and such was the suffering of the wild animals that 

 numbers of crocodiles and bears made their way into the 

 town to drink at the wells. The soil is prolific in the 

 extreme; rice, cotton, and dry gi-ain are cultivated 

 largely in the valley. Every cottage is surrounded by 

 gardens of cocoa-nuts, arecas, jak-fruit and coffee ; the 

 slopes, under tillage, are covered with luxuriant vege- 

 tation, and, as far as the eye can reach on every side, 



to be observed, that the same figure thee, so long as the sun and moon 

 was employed in Hebrew literature as endure : throughout all generations." 

 a type of duration— " They shall fear (Psahn Ixxii. 5, 17.) 



