NATIVES OF THE FOREST.
"'You have good reason to know the forest is not desolate, as you frequently see the tracks of wild elephants, pigs, leopards, and other game animals, and it is not impossible that you may encounter some of these denizens of the wood. But if you let them alone they are not likely to disturb you—and, as they can hear you coming long before you have a chance of seeing them, they are pretty certain to keep out of your way.
"'The road rises quite rapidly as you go from Gillemalle, and every little while you have fine views from the openings in the forest on the crests or sides of the foot-hills. The plains stretch away below you, and the hills seem like great mounds of tropical verdure, as they are covered quite to their summits with trees and smaller vegetation. In some places the road winds around cliffs so steep that you can roll stones over their sides, and hear them rattling and crashing for several minutes in the deep valleys below.
"'The last inhabited spot on the road is Palabaddula, and here you must leave your horses and proceed on foot, as the path is quite impassable for saddle animals. You cross a ravine on a narrow foot-bridge, and then you go on through a thick forest till you come to a level platform or bit of table-land called Deabetine. A traveller who came here five hundred years ago says, "There was at Deabetine the mark of Adam's foot, a statue with the left hand on the knee, and the right hand raised toward the west, and, lastly, the house that Adam made with his own hands." The mark of the foot and the statue are still there, but the house has gone.
"'After leaving Deabetine, the road goes to a large torrent, where it is the habit of pilgrims to bathe, in order to purify themselves for the visit to the sacred temple on the summit. A little way beyond the stream you come to four flights of steps cut in the solid rock; nobody can tell their age, but they were there eight hundred years ago, and were then so ancient that their origin was unknown. The way is so steep that the ascent would be very difficult without these steps.
"'Then you pass another ravine, and then you come to a great rock about fifty feet high that forms the summit. Here you climb by hanging on to some iron chains fixed in the solid rock, and I don't see how anybody ever got up there without them; they have been there a thousand years or so, and are mentioned by Marco Polo and other ancient writers. Some are newer than others, and are probably the gifts of rich pilgrims to replace those that were worn or rusted out.
