415 



CHAP. 11. 



BINTEXXE. THE NAVIGATION" OF THE MAIIAWELLI-GAXGA. 



THE CUSTOM OF POLYANDRY. THE RESTORATION OF 



THE RUINED TANKS. 



All preparations for our journey having been completed, 

 the elephants with the heavy baggage were sent forward 

 from Kandy on tlie 7th of February, and on the follow- 

 ing evening we set out by the lower Badulla road, which 

 for some distance follows the descent of tlie Maliawelli- 

 ganga, afterwards turning due east, towards Bintenne, 

 and the country of the Veddahs. JSTothing can be finer 

 than the scenery along this portion of the river ; wliich 

 falls 1500 feet between Kandy and Bintenne; making 

 its way through the gorges of those wonderfid hills, 

 wooded to their highest ascents, and so steep that, when 

 standing by the water's edge, it strains the eye to look 

 upward to then- summits. The great current is turbu- 

 lent in the extreme ; it rolls down long dech\'ities and 

 struggles between rocks of granite, with a loud roar 

 that came up through tlie thick forest to the path by 

 which we rode, so high above the river that its channel 

 was hardly discernible in the valley below. Presently, 

 as we journeyed along, we caught sight of it emer- 

 ging from woody defiles, and spreading its waters into 

 placid levels over deep beds of yellow sand, from the 

 repeated occurrence of which it has acquired the name 

 of the " great sandy river." Its banks are fringed 

 with the graceful foliage of the bamboos, which here 

 attain a height of fifty to sixty feet, their feathery 

 crowns waving majestically, hke ostrich plumes, above 

 the stream. 



The almost abandoned path by which we descended 



