268 MAMMALIA. [Chap. V. 



wrought by the action of the atmosphere, are called by 

 the names of the Tortoise Kock, the Eel Kock, and the 

 Eock of the Tusked Elephant. So impressed are the 

 Singhalese by the aspect of these stupendous masses 

 that in ancient grants lands are conveyed in perpetuity, 

 or " so long as the sun and the moon, so long as 

 Aetagalla and Andagalla shall endure." 1 



Kornegalle is the resort of Buddhists from the re- 

 motest parts of the island, who come to visit an ancient 

 temple on the summit of the great rock, to which access 

 is had from the valley below by means of steep paths 

 and steps hewn out of the solid stone. Here the chief 

 object of veneration is a copy of the sacred footstep 

 hollowed in the granite, similar to that which confers 

 sanctity on Adam's Peak, the towering apex of which, 

 about forty miles distant, the pilgrims can discern from 

 Aetagalla. 



At times the heat at Kornegalle is intense, in con- 

 sequence of the perpetual glow diffused from these 

 granite cliffs. The warmth they acquire during the 

 blaze of noon becomes almost intolerable towards 

 evening, and the sultry night is too short to permit 

 them to cool between the setting and the rising of the 

 sun. The district is also liable to occasional droughts 

 when the watercourses fail, and the tanks are dried up. 

 One of these calamities occurred about the period of my 

 visit, and such was the suffering of the wild animals 

 that numbers of crocodiles and bears made their way 



1 Forbes quotes a Tamil con- chap. ii. It will not fail to be 

 veyance of land, the purchaser of observed, that the same figure was 

 which is to " possess and enjoy it employed in Hebrew literature as 

 as long as the sun and the moon, a type of duration — " They shall 

 the earth and its vegetables, the fear thee, so long as the sun and 

 mountains and the River Cauvery moon endure ; throughout all gene- 

 exist." — Oriental Memoir s y vol. ii. rations." — Psalm lxxii. 5, 17. 



