l62 



The National Geographic Magazine 



sonry crumbled and the splendor of 

 Sigiri dwindled. When the plain was 

 devastated and depopulated and the ap- 

 proaches had suffered some sudden and 

 complete ruin, the priests abandoned the 

 monastery in the air, and as the Maha- 

 wanso does not make any mention of this 

 withdrawal, it is believed that it had been 

 abandoned for all of six centuries when 

 the archaeologists began work. In three 

 seasons they uncovered the rock and put 

 in the scaling ladders and hand rails to 

 make it accessible, and fought off swarms 

 of bees with fire balls. They long had 

 hopes of uncovering treasure in the pal- 

 ace ruins, and dug through debris beds 

 fifty feet deep, hoping for some precious 

 spoil ; but the Malabar marauders or the 

 departing priests had swept it clear of 

 valuable things before the last staircase 

 crumbled. 



Perched on that pinnacle peak, over- 

 looking half that north end of Ceylon, as 

 it seemed, the air was fresh and cool in 

 spite of the overhead sun, and the place 

 was inspiring. When the descent began 

 and one looked down and off into vistas 

 of space and diminishing perspectives 

 over each boot tip, all sense of exhilara- 

 tion was gone. The archsologist skipped 

 like a chamois and walked securely as a 

 fly, in his rope-soled tennis shoes, over 



the dizzy rock slopes. He left the 

 grooves and the hand rails to the stran- 

 gers, who sat down on the rock 

 and abjectly crawled, feet foremost — • 

 "swarmed," in fact — down, along the 

 slanting, curving rim of the mushroom's 

 top, gripping the rail with a drowning 

 man's thoroughness. 



"No. We have not lost any tourists 

 yet. None slipped off, none blown away, 

 so far — and no suicides. Why, I often 

 go up three and four times a day, to 

 watch the work. It is quite safe. See?" 

 and the archaeologist side-stepped off on 

 the perpendicular wall and danced a 

 tarantelle with his own free foot flour- 

 ished over six hundred feet of empty 

 air, until we begged him to remember 

 the future of archaeology in Ceylon — a 

 future that never can hold anything so 

 unique and sensational as Sigiri. 



The little Tamil horse boy sat on his 

 heels flicking the noonday flies from the 

 ponies when we i^eached the level low- 

 land and its steaming, greenhouse atmos- 

 phere. He grinned at us, and we knew 

 the black imp had seen our abject crawl- 

 ing on Sigiri heights. 



"Did he go up?" and the coachman 

 answered, "Yes ; and it was very nice, he 

 says, but the get-downing was awful. 

 He has prayered and been saved." 



