ADAM'S SECOND EDEN 
145 
brayed them in mortars, or tortured them 
in gentler ways, or set them to work 
building" palaces for their captors. 
The best excursion from Nuwara Eliya 
is to the summit of Pidurutallagalla, or 
"Pedro" for short, which rises from the 
other side of the golf links a steep 2,000 
more feet in the air. The strenuous ones 
walk up a well-chosen path, with benches 
at the best lookout points ; the wise con- 
serve their wind by riding in rickety 
chairs, and the start is always made be- 
fore daybreak in order to reach the sum- 
mit at sunrise. 
It is an enchanting trip at dawn up 
through the forest of rhododendron trees, 
bearing many orchids, with thick mosses 
and hanging mosses glittering with the 
heavy dews. From the cairn on the open 
summit (8,296 feet) the eye sweeps over 
mountain tops and green hills down to 
the lowland plains and the sea. Adams 
Peak lies below one, and the hazy ocean 
lies around the great ^elief map. In a 
few minutes the distances and the low- 
lands are lost in the heat haze of the day. 
WONDERF'UL RUINS AND CAVe;S 
One of the most beautiful drives in 
Ceylon is the 12 miles from Kandy to 
Matale, and thence on down to Nalanda 
and Dambool, at the edge of the low 
country that constitutes the northern half 
of the island. Every hill is striped with 
tea bushes, and avenues of pepper, tama- 
rind, and rain trees shade the perfect 
roads that pass cacao plantations by the 
mile. 
One stops outside Matale at the Alu 
Vihara, in the shade of and hollowed out 
in the ledges of a most remarkable group 
of detached rocks. There is an image of 
the sleeping Buddha some 18 feet long 
and a great footprint in the rock. In 90 
B. C. the king convoked the assemblage 
of priests and bade them reduce to writ- 
ing all the teachings of the Buddha, 
M^hich up to that time had been handed 
down orally, the convocation of priests 
in every rainy season repeating the teach- 
ings day after day in unison, and in that 
way keeping pure the version brought to 
the island by the missionary prince Ma- 
hindo, son of the Emperor Asoka, the 
Constantine of Buddhism. 
At Dambool, 60 miles from Kandy, 
there is a great outcropping of gneiss, 
which slopes steeply upward for 600 feet 
on one side and rises as a sheer precipice 
from the plain on the other face. An 
undercut ledge near the summit of the 
rock face was availed of 2,000 years ago 
by a hermit, and a fugitive king, whom 
he sheltered in the cave home, later ful- 
filled his vows and excavated a vast 
chamber in the rock and two smaller 
caves and richly endowed this religious 
establishment. There is a fortified gate- 
way as entrance to the high terrace of a 
ledge, which holds a bell tower and a bo- 
tree. 
In the large cave cathedral there is a 
heroic rock-cut image of the Buddha 
standing rn the long altar table of living 
rock, and 53 seated images meditate in 
the moist perfumed air. 
A central dagoba is cut in one piece 
with the solid floor, and the rock roof 
and inner walls are painted with religious 
subjects in a strangely broad and simple, 
almost primitive, style that one would 
not be surprised to find in an old Tuscan 
monastery (see pages 148 and 149). 
The procession of saints, each with a 
golden nimbus, would be recognized as 
the work of a brother, had Giotto or 
Cimabue ever come to Dambool. The 
fronts of the caves are closed in with 
walls, and the small shrines have dirty 
Nottingham lace curtains, tawdry orna- 
ments, and greasy brasses that greatly 
detract from the impressiveness of the 
place. 
From the summit of Dambool rock one 
sees only level jungle to north and east 
and west, Sigiri's rock fortress rising like 
a lighthouse from the unbroken green.* 
There are 40 miles of level carriage road 
between two walls of foliage, with only 
a dreary village here and there, all the 
way to Anuradhpura. The plains seem 
hot and steamy to one coming down 
from the cool air of the hills, and in the 
old posting days we had to leave Matale 
before daylight to accomplish the 70-mile 
drive at dusk, changing horses six times. 
Now, with a railway direct from Co- 
lombo, one can get there in six hours, 
* See article "Archeology in the Air," in the 
National Geographic Magazine, March, 1907. 
