CEYLON BRANCH ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 9 



any thing that affects the island which is not within the 

 range of its sympathies. And are we not reminded of our 

 place and duty by every thing about us ? For, as on the one 

 hand we have the abrupt and picturesque coast of the East s 

 with the tide bearing up against it, and the surge echoing 

 along from Point Pedro to Dondra head — on the other, the 

 naked sandy shore of the West, drooping into the passing 

 ocean by which it appears to have been at one time sub- 

 merged,-— and in the interior, the mountain heights of 

 Adam's Peak and Pedrotallagalla — the mountain plains of 

 Nuwera Ellia and the Horton plains, — and the vale of 

 Doombera, — while to the neighbouring continent the island 

 stands indissolubly joined by the island of Manaar, the island 

 of Ramisseram, Adam's bridge, and the intermediate ridges 

 of rock, an adamantine chain — so, in moral objects and moral 

 relations as in the natural, the lofty and the lowly, the rug- 

 ged the fascinating and the tame, if they but tell of Ceylon, 

 and hold with the continent and the world, they are all 

 ours, they belong to the Asiatic Society of Ceylon, — the 

 Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 



Mention has been made of Dondra head. This place 

 and its neighbourhood are full of memorials of past ages. 

 Here lie prostrate the ruins of a city and temple once reck- 

 oned divine— at the distance of about three quarters of a 

 degree, to the north, stand Adam's Peak and the Maha 

 Saman dewale : at a point nearly equidistant on the north- 

 east, is the great Kattregam dewale : and in the interme- 

 diate space are the old wihares of Mulkirigalla, with their 

 colossal figures of Budha ; while on the north west there is 

 the Maha wihare of Belligam with its great Bo tree — the 

 statue of Kusta rajah cut in the solid rock, and the Moor 

 tombs of Belligam. The natural scenery joins with all 

 these in giving an interest to this portion of the island, not 

 surpassed by any other. Listen, and you hear upon the 

 shore the action of the elements, and the polar current in 

 its progress to the equator, — the ledges and blocks of rock 

 which skirt the receding coast testifying to the work going 

 on, — and before us wave in subdued grandeur the fine hills 

 of the Morowa corle. The very population adds interest 

 to the place ; for here, as it were around the aged Maha 

 Modliar, who has indeed outlived and overlived the days 

 of other years, we find the busy and industrious inhabit- 

 ants of Matura and Galle, with on the one hand, the dis- 

 orderly people of Bentotte and its neighbourhood, and not 



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