Archeology in the Air 



159 



mains from Kasyapa's time. Cliunam, 

 the universal building material of the 

 tropic East, is a cement composed of 

 lime, cocoanut milk, and Para tree juice. 

 It hardens and takes a polish like marble, 

 and where even slightly protected, as this 

 wall has been by the overhang of the 

 rock, will last for all time. Such a chu- 

 nam screen wall once protected all these 

 lower staircases and galleries, so that 

 Kasyapa and his train could pass up and 

 down, in safety, unseen from the plain. 

 Patches of highly colored, well-preserved 

 paintings decorate the overhanging roof 

 of this gallery — a queen's procession, 

 bearing flowers and offerings to the tem- 

 ple — similar in design and execution to 

 the paintings on the walls of the Ajanta 

 caves. One sees them contentedly from 

 below, although there remain still the 

 dizzy scaffoldings and skeletons of poles 

 by which the archseologists reached these 

 pockets or arches on high, to hang in 

 mid-air while they sketched and photo- 

 graphed these pre-Raphaelite paintings — 

 frescoes on the living rock, in clear 

 yellow, green, and red, that Puvis de 

 Chavannes might have done in an earlier 

 incarnation, when art was pure and 

 strong, fresh and young, and fog and 

 smoke were not a necessary part of his 

 palette's setting. 



Another long rock staircase, hugging 

 the side of the rock, brought us up to the 

 broad shoulder or terrace on the north 

 face of the mesa, where foundations 

 show the extent of the large guard-house 

 or barracks that defended the upper 

 staircases of the Lion Rock. ' The wind 

 blew fresh and cool over far levels of 

 tree tops, and every prospect pleased us 

 save that of steep overhanging Sigiri, the 

 spidery lines of iron scaling ladders and 

 hand rails that we had seen the black 

 blacksmith bending from iron piping in 

 his forge far below. 



And we had brashly said, from Kandy 

 to Dambool, that we were going to 

 Sigiri ! "And climb the Rock" ? other 

 tourists asked. Of course. Silence for 

 a little longer would have been as gold or 

 radium in our pockets, for we were as 



the most microscopic of ants about to 

 climb the stem of a gigantic mushroom, 

 and to crawl up over its curving, um- 

 brella edge. 



The name of Lion Rock for long had 

 no especial significance, until on this 

 guard-house terrace the archffiologists 

 descried three claws and the dew-claw 

 of the feet of the gigantic lion, whose 

 head, moulded on to the rock front, gave 

 the name Sinha-giri, lion rock. Deep 

 grooves were cut in the face of the rock 

 as steppings for walls of masonry and 

 the whole mass coated with chunam, and 

 painted to the semblance of a lion's head 

 resting on his extended paws. The king's 

 train, passing between the paws, as- 

 cended a staircase and disappeared in the 

 lion's mouth. The series of concealed 

 staircases reached to the summit, where 

 the king could emerge safely to the open 

 air. There is trace of a portcullis half 

 way up, the perpendicular grooves cut 

 true and smooth, and in his palace in air 

 Ivasyapa might defy his enemies to reach 

 him. 



The lion's claws measured four and 

 five feet across, and passing between 

 them was the original staircase of glitter- 

 ing quartz, and then a long, iron ladder 

 laid against the wall, as ladders are gen- 

 erally laid. The wind blew fresh from 

 northeast and eddied up from under- 

 neath, as we mounted the rungs and 

 looked down on dizzy vistas of far green 

 jungle space. Then the ladder ran at 

 right angles out in the air, parallel with 

 the face of the rock, the gas pipe rungs 

 driven into sockets drilled in the rock. 

 Lizards chuck-chucked and ran derisively 

 away as we advanced, the very flies 

 kicked their heels in scorn as we clung 

 with death grips to rails and stanchions. 

 As we stopped to rest, and to look 

 upward only, there were perpendicular 

 hand rails and iron loops of steps driven 

 in the perpendicular rock, as on the side 

 of a ship's hold or mast. A Zermatt 

 climber might have reveled in the pros- 

 pect, but not I. On foot and knee, on all 

 fours fairly, a solid rock slope was nego- 

 tiated ; and then came the gymnast's feat 



