THE CEYLON MUHAMMADANS. 
make perfectly certain that none were nigh at hand. 
He would then lift an earthen chatty, which contained 
boiled rice, off three small stones, on which it rest- 
ed ; then he would scrape away ail the burnt ashes and 
charcoal, the remains of the evening fire. After doing 
this, he would look out again, but all was black dark- 
ness. He now quickly removes a quantity of earth, 
from below where the ashes of the fire stood, which 
forms a hole, from which he draws forth an old tin 
cannister, which contained something that rattled, and 
as that rattle proceeded from the old tin canister, so 
also did a rattle, or chuckle, again, from beneath 
Hassan Tambi’s beard. He emptied that canister 
of its contents, which were fifty rupees, and he spread 
them out on the floor besides the small lamp. There 
they lay, and glittered. Hassan Tambi stretched him- 
self out on the floor beside them, rested his head upon 
his hand, and his elbow on the floor ; in this position 
he lay for a very long time, and if any one had seen 
that solitary man, it would have been a question 
whether his eyes or the rupees glittered brightest. After 
he had feasted his eyes to the full, he gathered them 
up into the old canister, restored it to the hole, upon 
the top of which the ashes were again gathered up. 
After this soporific he sighed, rolled his blanket 
round him, blew out the lamp, and fell asleep. 
Reader, the next time you travel along the road, 
from Pussellawa to Ramboda, as you cross the bridge 
over the Katukitul stream, just below the old site of 
Huntly Lodge, look up, and you will see a marsh, down 
which water trickles from Hassan Tambi’s spring : for 
his words were true, it has never dried up ! You wdll 
also see the small waterfall a little above the bridge, 
where the Moorish women w^ere bathing. Look up, and 
you will see that huge rock, with the rent in it from 
top to bottom, but it will not convey to you any idea 
of a cross now, because the tall jungle that stood on 
the top is all felled, long ago. Still keep looking up, 
and you will see a small bungalow or |)robably only a 
chimney-top, rising out of a mass of shrubs, just at 
the top of a steep zigzag road. As you go on, 
you will come to a bazar at the roadside it is not 
the same, but on that very site Hassan Tambi built 
his. Before you turn the corner, look up to the 
“ Eagle’s Nest” once more, for that was the bunga- 
low in which Hassan Tambi exchanged g of a 
penny for £ 5 . But none now need accuse that young 
man, who is now old, of exchanging silver for copper. 
For that is not one of the failings of 
P. D. Millie, 
