694 l^fic Auicncaii Xatunxlist. [August. 
months in the lovely hills and valle\s of the central highlands ; 
in towns, villages, on coffee plantations; in remote hamlets among 
the natives of the backwoods on the gem-rivers : indeed, there 
is hardly a spot of interest on that island which I did not visit. 
And now I will endeavor to give an account — a very con- 
densed account — of some of the things which I saw and observed 
there. A few preliminar>' remarks on the island in a general 
sense may be here of value. 
The Island of Ceylon was knoun alrcad>- to the ancients, and 
we find it frequently alluded to, under the name of Taprobane, 
by Greek and Roman writers. To the Arabs it was known as 
Lanka and Serendib, and under this latter, name it is mentioned 
in the " Arabian Nights " as the scene of some of Sindbad the 
Sailor's remarkable adventures. Some modern investigators 
have asserted that Ceylon is identical with the land of Ophir, 
whence Solomon obtained his gold, precious stones, and ivory ; 
but as this very land of Ophir has already been searched for in 
various parts of Africa, on the Island of Madagascar, and even 
Sumatra, I only mention this as a curiosity. According to a 
tradition still current in the East Ceylon was the original seat of 
paradise. The " Vajasanga-Sanhita," one of the sacred books of 
the Brahmins, — a collection of Sanscrit myths, the age of which 
Max Miiller, the greatest Sanscrit scholar and orientali.st of the 
present, estimates at something like 4,500 years, — contains a 
legend quite similar to the Bible tradition of paradise, a legend 
which in my opinion has served as original to the latter. Even 
the names are almo.st identical : a first pair of human beings, 
Adiah (Adam) and Evana (Exe) were created by Brahma and 
placed in the Paradise, which was Lanka, the Lsland of Ceylon. 
They were of gigantic size. sa>s the Sanscrit legend. For 
.some offense they were drixen out of paradise ; Adiah, on his 
flight to the mainland of Asia, placed his left foot on a mountain- 
top in Ceylon, while he planted the right, with a single step, near 
Markuna in Siam, a distance of about 1,500 miles. ' 
Now in the southwestern part of the island, about fifty miles 
from the coast, and isolated from the central range, the so-called 
Highlands of Ceylon, there rises a singular mountain, a very 
