ADAM'S SECOND EDEN 
117 
shine and against the intense green foli- 
age, one has moving pictures of color 
and light. 
The Sinhalese women, with their bril- 
liant eyes, nice teeth, gentle manners 
and smiles, are most attractive, and with 
the tight comboy they wear a tight-fit- 
ting basque, lace-bordered and decollete, 
evidently of Dutch ancestry, which gives 
them a festive dinner-party air from sun- 
rise to midnight. They wear necklaces 
by the dozen, gold beads for first choice, 
or beads that look like gold, and Vene- 
tian glass beads like unto all the gems 
that go well with bronze skins (p. 113). 
It is the Tamil women who are loaded 
with nose rings and anklets, with rings 
on their fingers and rings on their toes. 
The Tamil dancing girls, loaded with real 
jewels, are matched by the Tamil pickers 
in the tea fields in tinsel and brass and 
glass gewgaws. 
THE SACRED TOOTH 
Chief object of interest at Kandy is 
the temple or palace of the Sacred Tooth, 
a relic of the body of the Buddha, which, 
after many wanderings in India, was 
sent to Ceylon for safe-keeping early in 
the 4th century. It was the prize of 
many wars, and once carried ofif by ma- 
rauding Malabars. was recaptured and 
brought back to Ceylon in the 15th. cen- 
tury. The Portuguese seized the tooth 
in the i6th century, took it to Goa, 
burned it, pounded the fragments in a 
mortar, and scattered the dust to the 
winds from a boat at sea. 
That tooth ceased to exist, but the 
king had a new one made of ivory, large 
and strong, 20 times the size of any tooth 
any mortal saint ever had in his head, 
and built this Dalada Malagawa, or 
Palace of the Sacred Tooth, up in the 
hills, where neither marauding Tamils 
nor white buccaneers could get the molar 
away. Again and again, as wars were 
waged with Portuguese, Dutch, and Eng- 
lish, the tooth was spirited from its pal- 
ace and hidden, but since 181 5 it has 
reposed in peace and safety under the 
British flag. It is taken out once a year, 
at the time of the great festival and ele- 
phant parade at the full moon of August, 
and is shown to crown princes and visit- 
ing potentates with great ceremony. 
There is an imposing white entrance 
beside the lake, and from the first drum- 
beat at sunrise until the last service at 
sunset, one sees priests and people cross- 
ing the bridged moat and disappearing in 
the white archway. A cloister surrounds 
the large stone-paved court which holds 
the real shrine, a two-story building lav- 
ishly carved and gilded and surrounded 
as with a picket fence with spiked irons 
for the votive candles. Trays and bas- 
kets of flowers overflow at the entrance, 
where the flower-sellers sit all day dis- 
posing of their heavily scented jasmin, 
frangipanni, gardenia, and oleander gar- 
lands and loose blossoms. 
IMMENSE STORES OF JEWELS 
The worshiper, having cleansed heart 
and hands and feet at a fountain in a 
corner of the cloister, brings his candles 
and his trays of flowers and waits until 
the priests swing open the heavy silver 
doors, set in a triple frame of beaten 
silver, gold, and carved ivory. These 
precious gates admit to a cool white 
vault, from which priests and people 
crowd up a narrow stairway to another 
small anteroom, and thence through 
another silver door. This inner sanctum 
has a silver floor, and silver tables stand 
before the great jeweled bell of a reli- 
quary which is protected by a glass par- 
tition reaching to the ceiling. 
This golden dagoba covering the sacred 
tooth is but the seventh outer covering, 
each one more richly jeweled than the 
others and festooned with strings of pre- 
cious stones. A peacock spreads a tail 
of rubies and emeralds, and from it 
hangs the great Kandyan emerald, three 
inches long and two inches deep. Below 
that hangs an amethyst two inches long, 
and the rest of the casket is thick with 
gems. The innermost cover is almost 
solidly crusted with rubies. 
Besides these in sight, the temple owns 
great stores of precious stones, and 
among the elephant caparisons there is 
one great headpiece for the Tooth's own 
animal which holds a cat's-eye of heroic 
size, the largest known. 
The breath of many people, the heavily 
scented air, and the smoke of myriad 
candles keep the glass partition so 
dimmed and clouded that one gets slight 
