CHAPTER V
IN CEYLON'S HILL COUNTRY
When good Kandyans discourse in flowery vein, they say Kandy is only forty miles from heaven. Visitors who have fallen under the charm of the place are more likely to wonder at their moderation than question their ability to measure celestial distances. If Gautama Buddha's "eternal rest" were to be had on earth, Kandy would surely be the reward of Nirvana promised those who have acquired merit.
The beauty of Kandy is based upon naturalness; it is not grand like Taormina in Sicily, nor produced by nature and art in combination like Monte Carlo. Everything connected with the spot is fascinating, even the jungle that by day harbors the jackals which sometimes make night hideous to sojourners. Everybody appears happy; even elephants hauling timber in the suburbs toil cheerfully.
This inland province that formed the kingdom of Kandy preserved its integrity throughout the Portuguese and Dutch invasions of the island; and the English were in possession of the coast section full nineteen years before the Kandyan monarchy succumbed to their power.
This beautiful city was a different place under the native kings. They loved grandeur, apparently, but it was the grandeur of selfish surroundings and luxury. The lake now the center of the city was constructed by the last king, it is true; but its shore witnessed atrocities never surpassed in savage excess. Near the spot where stands a monastery of yellow robed monks of Buddha, the last king assembled his people in 1814 to witness the punishment of the innocent wife and children of a fleeing official accused of treason. By the blow of a sword the head of each child was severed from its body in the mother's presence, even that of the babe wrenched from her breast. The heads were placed in a mortar, and the woman forced under threat of disgraceful torture to pound them with a huge pestle.
When news of this reached the coast the English determined to intervene in the interests of humanity. While the horror was yet fresh in the public mind, a party of native merchants of Colombo came to Kandy to trade. The fiendish king ordered them seized and horribly mutilated. When, a few weeks later, the survivors returned to the sea-coast deprived of ears, noses and hands—with the severed members tied to their necks—the English decided to act immediately. Three months later Kandy was in their possession, and the king an exile in southern India.
From that time, with the exception of a few years when the hereditary Kandyan chiefs were troublesome through finding their privileges circumscribed, the progress of Ceylon as a whole has been remarkable. Perhaps the finest example of benefits coming with England's colonial rule is this "Eden of the Eastern Wave." Slavery and forced labor on public works have been abolished, fine roads constructed everywhere, and adequate educational facilities placed within easy reach.
A visitor perceives no squalor, few beggars, and apparently no genuine poverty. All these advantages have been secured practically without taxing the natives in any manner. Uniform contentment, consequently, is everywhere visible. The naked babies, looking like india-rubber dolls, have apparently never learned to cry.