RUANVELI DAGOBA AT THE "BURIED CITY."
CHAPTER XVI
A SACRED TREE
Do you remember that just about this time last week we were crouching in a hole in a muddy bank waiting for the thunderstorm to pass on? How different now, though we are still in Ceylon and, as crow flies, not so many miles from the Hunters' mountain-side. It is a gorgeous tropical afternoon, the bits of sky we can see through the feathery-leaved trees are of the deepest blue, and we are resting, because it seems too hot to move a limb. In front of us there stretches a sheet of limpid water which might be a lake except that it is surrounded by a raised bund, or bank, artificially made, with hewn granite slabs as steps going down at one end. We are glad of the shade of the trees falling across the short turfy grass, and we are seated on some broken blocks of granite, keeping a sharp look out for snakes. They will hardly be likely to trouble us here, but in that jungly bit behind it wouldn't be at all safe to rest like this. Even to sit on the short grass might be unpleasant, as there are all sorts of unknown insects here which bite and sting and stab, but we are safely raised on stones and are wearing thick boots. Examine that slab of granite there beside you; do you see that it has a most wonderfully carved snake upon it—a cobra with seven heads? It is so clear-cut it might have been done yesterday, yet it is part of the ruins of a mighty city, a city as large as London, which once stretched its busy streets over this quiet glade. The cobra was a sacred beast to the Hindus, and a seven-headed one was peculiarly so, seven being a mystic number.
What a glorious butterfly! Its body is as big as a small bird, and its great velvety wings are the sharpest black and white. No, I don't for a moment suppose you'll catch it, so it is no use getting hot! I'm glad you can't, for we have no proper apparatus here, and it would only be a crushed mass to take home. Don't go headlong into the tank, though, in your frantic efforts; it might be awkward. No, I don't think there are any crocodiles, only a few sacred tortoises perhaps. Look! there is a tiny one—that small yellow thing that is walking away with the melancholy dignity of a retired general. Pick it up if you like certainly, see it wag its head and legs helplessly. I wish we could take it home. As you replace it, it continues its grave walk in the same direction as if it had never been rudely interrupted. At that instant a hare darts across an open glade and disappears in the thick undergrowth. What a country! Æsop's Fables in real life, where hares and tortoises live together!
"Was this city here at the same time as Rameses ii. was living?"
No. Egypt was past its best days before this city, which was called Anuradhapura (Anarajapura), was built, and you must remember Rameses ii. was by no means one of the earliest kings of Egypt, he came quite late on in his country's history. His date was about thirteen hundred years before Christ, and it must have been about eight hundred years after that, though still you notice, 500 b.c., that this city was founded by some Cingalese who are supposed to have come over from India. That makes it between two thousand and three thousand years old, which we should think ancient enough if we hadn't visited Egypt first. Anuradhapura flourished for centuries as the capital of the Cingalese kings, who often carried on savage battles with the Tamils when they came over from India also.
Turn round now and examine that hill you wanted to climb a little while ago and tell me if you can see anything peculiar about it. No, I don't mean that large grey monkey who has just peeped at us in an impudent way and then swung himself into hiding, though I admit he is very interesting. I mean something odd about the hill itself. It is covered with trees and jungle scrub certainly, as any ordinary hill might be, but it is oddly steep and the sides rise very sharply from the ground. It is an even shape too, more like an inverted bowl than a hill; or, better still, just try to imagine some giant cutting off the dome of St. Paul's and setting it down here in the jungle, wouldn't it look something like that?
You don't quite agree, for you say that this has trees and bushes growing on it and St. Paul's dome would be bare. That is so, but if St. Paul's dome had been left for many hundreds of years in a country where vegetation grows as fast as it does here, wouldn't it probably be grown over too?