Dreams and delights

by L. Adams Beck

It seems that every movement is watched, that strained ears listen to every breath from the secrecy that can never be pierced.

Much farther on the forest opens into the ancient tank of Minneri, for these great artificial lakes of the bygone Kings here and in India are called tanks. It is a glorious lake twenty miles in circumference and I saw it first with the mountains, exquisite in form and colour, rising behind it in the rose and gold of a great sunset. Some forgotten King made it to water the country, and there are still the very sluices unbroken though choked by masses of fallen masonry. It is the work of great engineers. No place could be more lovely—the silver fish leaping in translucent water, and one pouched pelican with its ax-like beak drifting lazily in a glory so dazzling, that one could only glimpse it a moment in the dipping sparkles of the reflected sun. The way, like the ascent to Mihintale, was banked with masses of the Sensitive Plant, lovely with its fragile pink flowers and delicately folding and dropping leaves, fainting as you brush them in passing.

But the lake—the wide expanse, calm as heaven and a shimmer of rose and blue and gold! I lingered to watch it—the strange beautiful grotesque of the great bird floating above its own perfect image. It was evening and the jungle was sweet with all the scents drawn out of it during the long sun-steeped day—heavenly scents that come from the teeming life in the mysterious forests, fresh forests germinating on the ruins of the old—murmuring, calling, vibrating with life and wonder and strange existences, and their endless chain of blossom and decay.

It grew dark soon after Minneri, and the fireflies were glittering about us and the moonlight white on the narrow way. A whispering silence filled the air with unseen presences as of the feet that long, long centuries ago trod this way on their errands of pleasure or pain to the dead city of my goal. I could almost see its spectral towers and palaces down the moon-blanched glades. Illusion—nothing more.

The driver missed the track to Polonnarewa, but that mattered little, so wonderful was the night in the lonely place and the great dark where once a mighty people moved, and now but the moon and stars circle before a dead majesty.

But at the long last we found our way and the little rest-house which stands where stood the royal city, near a dim glimmer of water. The only accommodation was a chair, but that was welcome, and when I woke in the grey dawn she came gliding with silver feet over the loveliest lake rippling up to the steps of the fairy house in the woods, and peopled by the glorious rose lotus, grown by the ancient people for the service of the Temples. And the traveller whom I met there went out before breakfast and brought in for provender a pea-hen, a wood pigeon, and a great grey fish from the lake. For myself, I eat like a Buddhist priest and am content,—living foods were not for me.

The ruins at Polonnarewa are wonderful indeed, much more perfect than those of the better known Anaradhapura, though it does not offer, like the latter, the marvellous row of the Buddhas who have fulfilled their mission and that Buddha of Love who is yet to come. All about are temples with colossal Buddhas, palaces, the strangely sculptured stone rails which are so distinctively Buddhist surrounding richly carved shrines. Hinduism mingled with Buddhism also. Some of these beautiful relics have been dug out of the jungle strata, some reclaimed from the invading growths which are so all-obliterating in a tropic country, and no doubt there is as much more to be discovered. The carved work is exquisitely lovely. How strong is the passion for beauty—in the very ends of the earth it is found, and surely it confirms the Platonic teaching that it is a reflection of that passion of joy in which the Creator beheld his work on the seventh day and knew that it was good.

I cannot describe the wonder of passing through these glades and lawns and seeing the great dagobas, those mighty buildings of brick, but now waving with greenery, enshrining each its holy relic. Would that it were possible to imagine the city which dwelt under their shadow! But the homes of men pass very swiftly away. It is only the homes of their souls which abide. Yet the jungle is more wonderful than what it buries. The sunlit walls of green guard the road jealously. The sun-flecks only struggle a few inches within that line, and then—trackless secrecy. A bird flew out, jewelled, gorgeous, “Half angel and half bird.” Are there greater wonders within? Who can tell? It is sometimes death to attempt to lift the veil of Isis. I saw the gravestone of a young man who for all his strength and youth was lost in the jungle—caught in the poisoned sweetness of her embrace and so died. It may have been a lonely and fearful death, and yet again—who knows! There are compensations of which we know nothing.

I stayed at the little rest-house of Kantelai on its lake with the jungle creeping and whispering about it— “Dark mother ever gliding near with soft feet.” Days to be remembered—unspeakably beautiful—they leave some precious deposit in the memory almost more lovely than the sight itself, as in the world of thought the spirit is more than the body.

And for the end to my journey the great and noble harbour of Trincomali! I wonder why tourists so seldom go there, but the ways of the tourist pass understanding. It winds about in lakes of sea blue among palms and coral bights and glittering beaches. Long ago, the people drifting over from India built a temple where the old fort now stands, and though thus polluted the site is still holy and you may see the Brahman priest cast offerings into the sea from a ledge high up the cliff, with the worshipping people about him. Then the Portuguese swept down upon Ceylon in their great naval days when they were the Sweepers of the Sea, and they destroyed the temple and built their fort. And the Dutch followed, and the Portuguese vanished, and the French conquered the Dutch, and again the Dutch the French, and then the English, hawking over the Seven Seas, pounced like the osprey, and the Dutch sovereignty passed into their keeping. Did I not say the Island had many masters?