254 MEMOIR OF DR. EARVEY. 



stream, but in a muddy patch of water, to which bullocks in 

 hundreds resorted. It was full of small fish, which came about 

 me and tickled me, trying to bite. Similar tame fishes flocked 

 round me by hundreds in the small rivers where I bathed. Our 

 resting-place for that night was Damboul, seventy miles from 

 Trincomalee, where I remained half a day, for the purpose of 

 visiting some famous rock temples, said to be two thousand 

 years old, and probably built by an earlier race of Cingalese 

 than the feeble people that now claim them. We started in 

 the cool of the morning, as the rest-house keeper told me there 

 would be mass at seven o'clock. " What," said I, "surely they 

 are not Eoman Catholics ?" "Oh, no, sir," said he, "it is a 

 Buddhist mass." I hired a guide, and set forth. After a short 

 way, we turned from the road into a shady path, to ask permis- 

 sion from a priest. His house was well set up, with a grove of 

 cocoa-nuts and a planted garden round it. No doubt his 

 reverence is in good case. He was dressed in the usual yellow 

 robe, and graciously allowed us to proceed. We then began to 

 ascend the naked face of a steep granite rock ; and, after 

 mounting some way, entered a gully, through which steps had 

 been cut. This brought us out on a platform of rock, where 

 Plumerias had been planted for ornament, but they looked rather 

 dry, and here we entered the enclosure of the temple. These 

 temples are not buildings, but cavernous excavations near the 

 summit of the rock. It seemed to me as though advantage had 

 been taken of some natural hollow, which had been cut deeper, 

 the front being closed up by a wall. There are five of these 

 hollowed in the rock. To describe one describes all. You 

 enter a low door in the front wall, and find yourself in a dimly 

 lighted cavern, of no great height, but of considerable area. 

 A few windows having been opened, you see that there are 

 images, some small and some of colossean dimensions, ranged 

 all round, with curtains hanging before them, and painted 

 canvas ornamented with thousands of pictures of similar deities 

 stretched over the roof. One colossal figure, thirty to forty feet 

 long (or perhaps more), was lying on its side in each of the 

 temples. Other figures were in high-crowned caps, some of 

 which we were told were "kings;" others, "gods," were stand- 

 ing erect, but the most numerous figures — amounting to hun- 

 dreds— were sitting crosslegged on stools, or thrones, or chairs, 



