The Sea Road to the East, Gibraltar to Wei-hai-wei / Six Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office

by A. J. Sargent

Copyright.]

[See [page 74].

Copyright.]

[See [page 61].

As we approach Kandy the scenery grows wilder and the hills steeper, and we may perhaps catch sight of a different kind of cultivation. Long rows of low bushy plants are growing in the fields, and scores of dark brown natives, men, women and children, are picking the 24 leaves. We are entering the tea-planting district. In the distance is the planter’s house and near it the sheds 25 where the leaf is dried and packed for the market.

Here and there, in this part of our journey, we may notice stretches of desolate scrub breaking up the forest area. A century ago there was a continuous belt of forest between Kandy and the lowlands, jealously preserved by the native kings as a barrier against the invader; now only patches of this remain. The native has a method of cultivation styled chena: this consists in burning a piece of the forest, cultivating it for a year or two and then moving on to a new patch. The trees do not grow again, but a low scrub springs up, useless for any purpose. When the Government interfered with this wasteful practice the damage was past repair.

We now reach Kandy, a beautiful old-world town, set in the forest high up among the hills, and full of relics 26 of past history. Here we see it, looking across the artificial lake on which it stands; and here is one of its 27 streets. The people in this district are old-fashioned and little touched by foreign influence. They still retain many of the old feudal ideas. Here we have a group of 28 chiefs, in the picturesque native dress, though the effect is rather spoilt by the clothes of the Europeans; and 29 here is a portrait of a chief showing his dress of ceremony with its elaborate ornaments. These dignified chiefs are very different from the native as we saw him at Colombo. All round us are ruins of temples and public buildings, often half buried in the jungle; but 30 we can still see the Audience Hall of the old kings of Kandy, with its carved wooden pillars. It is now used as a modern Court of Justice.

The Kandyans have a long and notable history behind them. Two thousand five hundred years ago, according to native tradition, a prince from the Ganges Valley reached Ceylon and established himself as king. The invaders were tillers of the soil, and their rulers have left monuments of their energy in the many ruins of irrigation tanks dotted about the dry northern part of the island. They were not for long left undisturbed in their conquest. From time to time the land was raided by the people of Southern India, and the history of the kingdoms of Ceylon is largely a series of wars. We can trace the gradual progress of the later invaders in the removal of the Sinhalese capital further and further south; first, from the coast to Anuradhapura, then to Polonnaruwa, and so on to Kandy, and finally to Cotta, now a suburb of Colombo. As the result of this movement, the southwest district is to-day occupied mainly by Sinhalese, who form two-thirds of the native population, while the northern part is peopled by Tamils who belong in language, race and religion to Southern India. The Chinese, who for many centuries traded with Ceylon and at one time conquered it and carried away the reigning king, have left no traces; not so the Arab traders of the West. Their Mohammedan descendants still form a large part of the population on the coast, especially on the east side, and throughout the island they are the shopmen and traders in nearly every village. So we have Tamils in the north. Sinhalese in the south and Moormen everywhere; and all mingled together with Europeans, Burghers and half-castes in the coast ports and Colombo. There is one other race which we must not forget. In the jungle of the wild Eastern Province are to be found the Veddas, the dying remnant of the people who occupied Ceylon before the coming of the Sinhalese. There are less than four thousand of these curious people in the island and their number is dwindling steadily. Not all are equally backward. Some of them practise a rude form of agriculture in the forest clearings 31 and build rough huts such as we see here. Others are still cave-dwellers, living on wild game which they hunt 32 with bows and arrows. Here we have one of their rock shelters and here a group of men with their weapons. 33

There is a variety of religions corresponding to the variety of races. The Sinhalese are Buddhists; they date their conversion from the visit of a disciple of Buddha two thousand two hundred years ago, and the island abounds in proofs of their thorough adoption of the creed. In Kandy 34 itself we have the famous temple of the Tooth. Here is a general view from the outside. We pass through the 35 entrance gate of massive stone, with finely carved doors; but the temple within, of which we see a corner here, is not 36 imposing according to our ideas, in spite of its great sanctity in the Buddhist world; while the tooth is a piece of ivory which never came out of a human jaw. We shall see more of such sacred remains as we journey northwards, to the lower country and the older capitals of the kingdom, and chief among them Anuradhapura. Everywhere are ruins of old monuments half buried in the jungle; a sudden turn may often bring us to a gigantic 37 image of Buddha, carved out of the solid rock, or to one of the curious dagobas,—bell-shaped solid erections of brick or stone, sometimes plastered with lime. Each one of these is supposed to contain some sacred relic of Buddha. Nearly every temple has its dagoba, together with a wihara or image house, a Bo tree surrounded by a platform, and a pansala or house for the priests. 38 In Anuradhapura are to be found some of the most famous of these shrines. Here is the Ruanweli, about two 39 thousand years old, still visited by crowds of devout worshippers; and here is a nearer view. Again we have the 40 Thuparama, shining brightly in its coat of lime plaster; it is the oldest and most sacred of all, and was built by one of the kings to contain the collar bone of Buddha. 41 Not far away is a remarkable rock temple, the Isurumuniya; in the foreground we see the high priest with his long wand of office, and beyond is another dagoba. From the summit of the rock above the temple we can look far and wide over the ancient city, with its ruins of palaces and temples half buried in the trees, and imagine something of the life of its first builders. Here 42 is one of these fragments; notice the finely carved moonstone at the foot of the steps.