ADAM'S SECOND EDEN 
153 
chronicling Sinhalese history at the one 
monastery down to the time of the Brit- 
ish conquest. 
The sacred Bo tree has always been 
an object of reverence and pilgrimage, 
and it never suffered during the many 
wars and invasions. It stands in a large 
enclosure with an entrance gate, and 
looms up a mountain of dancing, dark- 
green, glittering leaves. 
Triple terraces, or altar-tables, sur- 
round the mighty trunk and protect the 
Tree of Wisdom, as at Buddh-Gaya, 
from the extraordinary offerings of the 
faithful. A legion of wanderoo monkeys 
live in the tree and subsist on the fruit 
and flowers and food-offerings of pil- 
grims. Languid brown priests receive 
more solid contributions and permit Bur- 
mese worshipers to daub ochre and gold 
leaf on the walls. 
A grove of its descendants surrounds 
the original tree, and each shining, heart- 
shaped leaf, with its long, tapering, ten- 
dril, perpetually spins and trembles on 
its long foot stalk — trembles in reverence 
for the one who became the Buddha be- 
neath its branches. Each leaf is a prayer, 
a sacred talisman, and pilgrims prostrate 
themselves before a fallen leaf and rev- 
erently lift and carry the treasure away. 
When I went back to the tree, late on 
a rainy November afternoon, to gather 
more of the great leaves — which are two 
and three times the size of the leaves of 
the Buddh-Gaya tree — only a mite of a 
Tamil horse-boy from the resthouse went 
along. The troops of monkeys fled from 
the tables of offerings to the tree 
branches and sat there staring and gib- 
bering. 
When I stooped to pick up a leaf they 
dropped to the terraced altar. When I 
moved they moved, dropping down and 
down, alighting on the stone flags so 
silently on their pneumatic feet that be- 
fore one could realize it the court was 
full of mouthing apes that swung threat- 
ening arms, as they hopped nearer and 
nearer, until flight was best. 
When Anuradhpura was a city meas- 
uring 1 6 miles from north gate to south 
gate, and there were 11,000 houses on 
that one street, there were palaces and 
temples and monster dagobas to match ; 
and, after being razed and rebuilt, after 
several wars it attained its height in the 
I2th century. At that time the Sinha- 
lese overran southern India and carried 
their victorious excursions as far as 
Cambodia ; but when the Tamils retali- 
ated, a century later, the whole of north- 
ern Ceylon was laid waste. Cities were 
destroyed, tanks were broken, and the 
people massacred or carried into captiv- 
ity. The country soon went to jungle, 
with a few villages and lone temples ex- 
isting by the swamps that once were 
tanks of clear water. British rule has 
revived the region, roads have been cut 
through, tanks rebuilt, and the land culti- 
vated once more. With the railway and 
the rubber boom, and irrigation, the 
prosperity of the low country is assured. 
Along with this economic salvation 
British archeologists have done an enor- 
mous work in uncovering, making acces- 
sible, and making known these wonderful 
monuments of the early century. Mihin- 
tale, the sacred pinnacle peak eight miles 
from Anuradhpura, is strewn over with 
temples, tanks, shrines, and alcoves where 
saints and hermits dwelt. Pollonaruwa, 
50 miles across the jungle from Dambool, 
was the capital from the 8th to the 13th 
century, and in the great area of ruins 
there are many buildings better preserved 
than at Anuradhpura, with far more 
elaborate sculptures (see pages 136, 159, 
and 160). 
The first railway from Colombo to 
Kandy was opened in 1869, and although 
immensely profitable to the government, 
it was forty years before it was con- 
tinued the 200 miles to Jaffna, at the 
north end of the island. One looks im- 
patiently at the map where the large is- 
lands of Manaar and Paumben are al- 
most joined by the chain of islands 
known as Adams Bridge — our fore- 
father, it is said, having gone by this 
route to Mecca to bring Eve to the new 
home in Ceylon. The passage between 
Ceylon and Manaar is so shallow that it 
can b^ forded, and that between Paum- 
ben was once dredged to accommodate 
vessels drawing ten feet, with such dis- 
astrous results to the pearl fisheries that 
it will probably never be attempted again. 
A railway from Ceylon to the Indian 
