414 RECOLLECTIONS OF A JOURNEY 
believe the impression to be that of Adam, our firsjt 
parent *. 
The Kandyans, as well as the inhabitants of the mari- 
time provinces, appear to consider a visit to the Peak a 
business of much importance. Mr Sawers had a number 
of servants along with him who had never shaved. Shortly 
after we had entered the area of the Sri pade^ their chins 
were trimmed, and the beards religiously offered at the 
shrine of Buddhoo ; which ceremony is performed by tying 
the hair to the chains that are attached to the shed. 
We found two priests of Buddhoo on duty at the Sri 
pade; one of them was a man far advanced in life, the 
other seemed to be only about twenty years of age. They 
reside here only during the period when pilgrims visit it, 
or from January to April inclusive, being the dry season, 
on the west side of the island. During the wet months the 
Peak is commonly enveloped in clouds, and in rainy wea- 
ther the two pathways by which it can be ascended become 
impassable. The priests, while on duty at the Sri pade, 
occupy a little hut immediately without the encircling wall. 
The old priest informed us, that the period when he ought 
to leave the Peak was annually announced to him, in a 
dream, by a Brahmin. When he neglected the suggestion 
of the Brahminical phantom, a warning of a very different 
* The fabulous accounts which have been given of the Sri Mallua Fade 
by fhe author of the Arabian Nights Entertainment, and some «ompiIers of 
travels, Sec. are not a little ludicrous. Sir Thomas Herbert, Baronet, who 
published an account of his travels in the " Oriental Indies and Isles adja- 
centj" about the year 1 626, tells us, that " upon Candy's high Peak was 
shewed and credited the footsteps of old Adam, born and buried here, if we 
will believe them. In the same place they shew a lake of salt water, upon 
a high hill, said to be no other than the tears afflicted Eve shed a hundred 
years together for the loss of her righteous son Abel." 
