NO. 48. — 1897.] ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY, SIGIRIYA. 119 



The type of features is Aryan— oval face, thick fleshy lips, 

 but straight, almost Grecian nose and forehead. The 

 "almond-eyes" of No. 1 ' B ' betoken a slight tinge of 

 Mongolian blood. 



I have styled these paintings " portraits," and, I venture 

 to think, with reason. Unable to cast himself loose from 

 all conventionalism, particularly in the stiff disposition of 

 arms and hands, the artist — he, I mean, who executed the 

 paintings in " pocket" 'B' — has imbued each figure with 

 certain delicate traits in face, form, pose, and dress, which 

 stamp it, mejudice, unmistakably as an individual likeness. 

 So skilfully in truth has the portrait painter worked that it 

 appears possible not merely to gauge approximately each 

 lady's age, but even, in great degree, " to find the mind's 

 construction in the face." 



These figures are no replicas of a flat, stereotyped image, 

 " mute fixtures on a stuccoed wall " — degenerate arj; that 

 wearies the eye at many a modern Buddhist temple in 

 Ceylon. Here they live, they move, they have a being ; all 

 is instinct with life and spirit. 



Mark the fair princess (No. 1 * B ' ) who has purposely taken 

 the lead in the procession with her lady-in-waiting (No. 2). 

 That dainty head saucily tossed back surely betrays, plainer 

 than words, full consciousness of her undoubted charms. 

 In her own eyes the " very pink of perfection," she essays 

 to parade as " the glass of fashion and the mould of form, 

 the observed of all observers." 



Following her demurely at some distance is a second prin- 

 cess (No. 3), perhaps the staid elder sister, accompanied by a 

 dusky maid of unattractive mien, carrying a rolled ola book. 



Next, come two more court attendants (Nos. 5, 6), mani- 

 festly importuning a matronly queen (No. 7) to hasten her 

 steps. The impassiveness of the royal lady is admirably 

 brought out by a slight, but expressive touch — the deliberate 

 unfolding, petal by petal, of a lotus bud she holds in her 

 hands. 



