132 SOUTHERN AXD CENTRAL rROVIXCJ!:S. [Part VII. 



ferred the payment, not only unaltered in form, but 

 in some instances increased in amount, to the Eoman 

 Cathohc Church, and the privilege of its collection is 

 to the present day farmed out by the clergy, and 

 yearly put up to auction at the several churches along 

 the coast. 



Approaching Caltura from Barber}^!, the country 

 becomes less level, and from openings in the woods 

 magnificent views are obtained of Adam's Peak\ and 

 the hills which surround it, which here make their 

 closest approach to the sea. The veneration with 

 which this majestic mountain has been regarded for 

 ages, took its rise in all probabihty amongst the abori- 

 gines of Ceylon, whom the sublimities of nature, awak- 

 ing the instinct of worship, impelled to do homage to 

 the mountains and the sun. ^ Under the influence of 

 such feelings the aspect of tliis solitary alp, towering 

 above the loftiest ran2;es of the hills, and often shrouded 

 in storms and thunder-clouds, was calculated to convert 

 awe into adoration. 



In a later aoje the relimous interest became concen- 

 trated on a single spot to commemorate some indivi- 

 dual identified with the national faith, and thus the 

 hollow in the lofty rock that crowns the summit, was 

 said by the Brahmans to be the footstep of Siva ^, by the 



' This uaine was given by the 

 Portiio-uese, who called the mountain 

 the '■'■ Pico (h Adam.'''' 



^ Ptolemy places the Solis Portus 

 on the east of Ceylon, and " Dagana, 

 Liuije sacra," on the south ; and 

 Pliny, lib. vi. ch. xxiv., says, the 

 .imbassador to Claudius described 



the names of the Peak, he says, 

 " this, without any change, is Ilam- 

 al-eel, Ham the sun." But Ilani- 

 al-eel is merely an European corrup- 

 tion of the Singhalese name Saman- 

 hela. Bryant seems to have found 

 it in Valentyn, Oud en Niemv Ood- 

 liulien, eh. xvi. p. 378, who quotes 



the island of the sun, " solis insula/' | from De Cottto, but the latter spells 



as lying to the Avest of it. Jacob 

 Bryant, in his Kcw System of 3Iy- 

 tlwloi/]/, Cfinib. 17()7, traces the vene- 

 ration for Adam's Peak to the 



it Ilamanelle, which does not harmo- 

 nise with ]?riant's conjecture. 



3 Hari)y"s BmWmm, cS'r., p. 212. 

 ]Marst)en, in his notes to ]\Iarco I'olo, 



worship of Amun (the sun), in i p. 671, quotes a passage fi-om a 

 Egypt, and availing himself of the I Malay version of the Ramayana, in 

 word "llamalel," said to be one of which the mountain of Serendib is 



