Chap. I.] DEVIL-DANCERS. 581 



were also discerned amongst the mounds of ])rickwork 

 over wliich we were obliged to clamber. A bear which 

 we disturbed retreated into one of the caves, many of 

 which are to be found amongst the ruins ; and after 

 a toilsome scramble we returned to bathe and breakfast 

 in the cool pansela of green branches, which the corale 

 of Enamalua, the chief of the district, had constructed 

 for our reception. 



Whilst seated here, we witnessed the extravagances 

 of two professional devil-dancers, who were performing 

 a ceremony in front of a httle altar, for the recovery of 

 a patient who was dying close by. It is difficult to 

 imagine anything more demoniac than the aspect, 

 movements, and noises of these wild creatures ; their 

 features distorted with exertion and excitement; and 

 their hair, in tangled ropes, tossed in all directions, as 

 they swung rouiul in mad contortions. 



DEVIL-DANCERS. 



A few miles from Sigiri, we crossed a low ridge of 

 hills, — the Hudu-Kanda, the summit of which com- 

 mands a wonderfid prospect over the waving expanse 

 of verdure that clothes the apparently unbounded 

 range of forest stretching to the verge of the horizon. 

 Far to the east, the broad stream of the Maha-welli- 

 ganga is discernible, with the sunbeams dancing on its 

 waters ; — here and there a single sohtary peak rises 

 abruptly above the tops of the trees, and the vast ruins 

 of Pollanarrua, with its enormous dagobas, each a inoun- 



r p 3 



