Archeology in the Air 



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geous clusters of plumy red and yellow 

 Gloriosa superba — the most splendid wild 

 flower in the world, fully worthy of its 

 superlative name. 



THE RED MONOLITH 



Dambool rest-house received and re- 

 vived us after the twenty-mile drive, and 

 from Dambool rock, the red monolith of 

 Sigiri rises squarely and sharply from 

 over the ten-mile level of tree tops — an 

 enchanted mesa that burned blood red 

 and purple in the sunset and seemed im- 

 possible of attainment by any two-footed 

 climber. The bare red rock, bulging at 

 the top and overhanging its base all 

 around, without crevice or chimney to 

 give access, gave us forebodings for the 

 morrow. 



At the rest-house dinner table tales 

 were told of travelers who drove over to 

 climb Sigiri — and drove back again ; of 

 heroic ones who climbed the first quartz 

 staircases airily, but sat down at the 

 guard-house terrace, and wept hysteric- 

 ally at sight of the scaling ladders hang- 

 ing in air, when it was time for them to 

 climb and cling by foot and hand, by 

 tooth and nail. They told of others who 

 arrived on high, but sat there half a day, 

 until hunger nerved them to a blind- 

 folded descent; two coolies with a rope, 

 and four coolies, each to tend and place 

 a hand or a foot, assisting the descent, for 

 a day's wages apiece. This archaeology 

 in the air seemed rather too sensational 

 for any one but Santos-Dumont, and 

 there was a profound wish that we had 

 kept Sigiri to ourselves until the deed was 

 done — or declined unknown. What was 

 Sigiri to us, anyhow? Who had ever 

 heard of it in America? 



We left the Anuradhapura road j:wo 

 miles out from Dambool and followed 

 the Trincomalie road for three miles be- 

 fore turning ofl^ into a jungle path that 

 led for si.x miles through the leafy wilder- 

 ness to the lone Lion Rock — a drive of 

 enchantment through the azure air of the 

 earliest morning. 



THE LAIR OF A W'ICKED KING '■ 



Few countries have so clear and com- 

 plete an historical record as Ceylon has 

 in the Mahawanso, or "Genealogy of the 

 Great," which was scrupulously kept 

 from the fifth century B. C. down to 

 1815, after the English had expelled the 

 Dutch. The Mahazvanso relates how 

 King Kasyapa, having murdered his- 

 father by entombing him alive, and half 

 murdering his brother, who fled to the 

 Indian mainland, had thereafter an un- 

 easy head and a bad conscience. Fear- 

 ing to remain in unprotected Anurad- 

 hapura, on the open plain, he built a 

 fortress around and a palace on top of 

 Sigiri rock and brought a great city to 

 its base. All the jungle round has 

 yielded proof of the splendid structures 

 that once stood there. The lines of tanks 

 and canals have been traced, and the 

 tank nearest the rock has been cleared 

 and walled again and made useful for 

 the little settlement that has grown 

 around the archaeologist's camp. 



The government has built a small rest- 

 house in a clearing, at just the right dis- 

 tance and point of view to show the bold- 

 est outlines of the tremendous monolith, 

 and if one were seeking the ideal spot 

 for peace and quiet, for world-forgetting, 

 and for absolute repose, Sigiri rest-house 

 would meet the requirements — a Nir- 

 vana, with the few necessary comforts of 

 life. It stands at the edge of Kasyapa's 

 viceroy's camp, which defended all ac- 

 cess to the causeway leading across the 

 tank to the rock and it had dependencies 

 in the way of audience halls, halls of jus- 

 tice, temples, and barracks. The camp 

 walls are of cyclopean masonry, and laid 

 in lines of boulders that match the walls 

 of Mycenae and rock-girt Tiryns. Across 

 the tank the jungle is cleared away and a 

 confusion of bare boulders, slopes, and 

 mounds of debris immediately surround 

 the rock. A first stone staircase, a ter- 

 race, an iron ladder, and a second stair- 

 case brought us to the passageway be- 

 tween a high parapet of chunam that re- 



