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it was the policy of the Kandyans to keep | cities, a people so powerful and in some the interior inaccessible, so there were respects so wise as those old Singhalese only difficult paths through dense jungle; — themselves, we must remember, conconsequently, although Knox had written querors from northern India - should of the wonderful ruins through which he have been driven from province to provhad passed when making his escape from ince till all their old power and energy his long captivity in Kandy, they continued seems to have died out. unknown till they were rediscovered by Lieutenant Skinner, about 1833, when surveying for his great work of road-making. At that time the site of the great city was the haunt of vast herds of elephants, sambur and fallow deer, buffalo, monkeys, and jackals. Porcupines and leopards sought shelter among the ruins, the tanks were alive with pelicans, flamingoes, and other aquatic birds, and large flocks of pea-fowl sought refuge in the cool shade, or sunned themselves in the green glades where once were busy streets. Of course, with the return of so many human beings, these shy creatures have retreated to more secluded hiding-places. Here and there, on the outskirts of Anuradhapura, there are great heaps of stones - huge cairns to which, even to this day, each passer-by must, without fail, add a stone, though the people have long since utterly forgotten what event they commemorate.

Imagine such a fate as this creeping over the great capitals where a hundred and sixty-five successive kings reigned in all the pomp and luxury of an Oriental court. Their history has been handed down to us in the Mahawanso, or "Genealogy of the Great," that precious manuscript to which frequent reference is so necessary to a right understanding of events in Ceylon. Its first section, which was compiled about the year A.D. 470, from native annals, treats of the Great Dynastyi.e., the kings who reigned from 543 B.C. to 301 A.D. after which comes the history of those who are classed as the Sulu-wanse, or "lower race," although that list includes the great King Prakrama Bahu, by whose orders the work was completed up to his time-i.e., 1266 A.D. Finally, it was carried on to the year 1758 A.D. by command of the last king of Kandy, all compiled from authentic native documents. Being written in Pali verse, none but the most learned priests could possibly read it, and, as a matter of fact, no one seems to have been able to do so when in 1826 Mr. Turnour, of the Ceylon civil service, set himself to master this terribly difficult task, and with marvellous patience and ingenuity succeeded in so doing. Therein we obtain the clue to what at first seems such a mystery-how a race which produced work so wonderful as these great

The mischief seems to have begun when the king of Anuradhapura first took into his pay mercenary troops from Malabar. These were the Tamils, whose descendants remain to this day. They rebelled, slew the king, and held the throne for twenty years. Driven from the island they returned, and again held it for forty years. Once more they were expelled, and once more fresh hordes poured in from Malabar, and landing simultaneously on all parts of the island, again took possession of the capital, where some settled, while others returned to the mainland laden with plunder. During all these years an everreturning contest was maintained between the Buddhists and their Brahmin invaders. There was the usual pulling-down and building-up of temples, so that by A.D. 300 the native records declare that the glory of the city was utterly destroyed, and the royal race of Children of the Sun had been exterminated. Nevertheless it continued to be a great powerful town, enclosed by strong walls.

The struggle with the Malabars continued till about A.D. 726, when the kings forsook Anuradhapura, and made Pollonarua, farther to the south, their capital, and more beautiful than the old city. Still the Malabars pushed on, and overran every corner of the island. At length, A.D. 1155, a mighty king arose, by name Prakrama Bahu, who with a strong hand delivered his country, and driving out the invaders, established peace and security. He rebuilt the temples of Buddha, and made or restored fifteen hundred tanks, and canals without number, to irrigate and fertilize the thirsty land. Yet thirty years after the death of this great, good man, his family had become so utterly weak through their incessant quarrels, that the Malabars once more returned and seized the tempting prize. And so the story of strife continued till in 1505 the Portuguese came, and then followed the further complications of the struggles between Portuguese and Dutch, and later, the French and English took their turn as disquieting elements.

But the consequence of all these fightings was the removal of the seat of gov ernment from one part of the isle to another, so that in many a now desolate

jungle there still remain some ruins of ancient cities which successively claimed the honor of being the capital for the time being. The oldest of these was Tamananuwara, which was the capital of Wijayo the Conqueror, B.C. 543. His successor founded Oopatissa-nuwara, calling it after himself. Then Maagama and Kellania had their turns before Anuradhapura asserted its supremacy. With the exception of eighteen years when Kaasyapa (the parricide and suicide) lived on the fortified rock of Sigiri, and one year when King Kaloona removed the capital to Dondra, or Dewa-nuwara, the City of the Gods, and likewise committed suicide, Anuradhapura reigned supreme for thirteen hundred and fifty-three years, when it was abandoned in favor of Pollonarua; three hundred years later Anuradhapura became the capital during one stormy reign, and Roohoona, Kalu-totta, and Kaacharagama were each the royal home for a brief interval. Then came the reign of the great King Prakrama, when the glory of Pollo. narua was at its height, and continued the capital during the seventeen changes of sovereignty which followed in the twenty years after his death. From 1235 to the end of the century Dambadiniya was the chief city, then Pollonarua had another turn. After this, Kurunegalla, Gampola, Sengada-galla-nuwara, Kandy, and Cotta were successively the royal headquarters. Now one after another of these great cities has fallen into comparative neglect, and several into total oblivion. Giant trees have overgrown both palaces and markets; beautiful parasitic plants have loosened the great blocks of stone, and the dark, massive ruins are veiled by lovely creepers and all the wealth of tropical greenery, through which, as they did so recently in Anuradhapura, bears and leopards roam undisturbed, while birds of all glorious hues fit through the foliage. Only at the time of certain great festivals do devout pilgrims still wend their way through the silent depths of these dark forests, to do homage at these shrines, and the stillness of night is broken by their pious ejaculations as they circle round the huge relic shrines.

At the time of our visit to Anuradhapura, the pilgrims had assembled in vast numbers to celebrate the festival of the midsummer new moon, and their simple camps - yellow tents of great taliput palm leaves, of which each pilgrim carries one section, to act as sunshade or umbrella - formed a very picturesque feature in the scene. Half-a-dozen pieces of leaf, supported by

sticks, form the slight shelter which is all they need. (Many carry one of the tough fibrous sheaths, which has enveloped the young flower of the areca palm, and which serves as a simple rice plate, while an ingeniously folded Palmyra palm leaf forms an excellent water-bucket). With reverent steps they trod the green forest glades, marking the course of the main streets of the holy city, and guided by yellow-robed Buddhist priests. Many of the pilgrims carried small flags and banners, and one group carried a miniature ark containing a golden lotus blossom to be offered to the sacred Bo-tree. The ark, I may observe, holds the same place of honor in Ceylon as it does in many other nations. To all travellers in the Himalayas, the ark veiled with curtains, within which is concealed the idol most deeply reverenced, is a familiar object—an ark which is carried on staves through the forests, with music and dancing, and which, both in its proportions and in all the ceremonies connected with it, bears a strange affinity to the sacred ark of the Israelites. We find it again in the churches of Abyssinia and in the Buddhist temples of Japan; and here in Ceylon, every important dewali (that is, every Malabar temple) has an ark precisely similar to that of the Himalayas, the sacred objects, which are so jealously concealed from the gaze of even devout worshippers, being in this case the mystic arrows of the particular god or deified hero there held in reverence. Once a year, at a great full-moon festival, this ark is borne forth on its staves, and carried in sunwise circuit round the temple, amid great rejoicing. That tiny ark, containing the mystic lotus blossom, was not the only link we noticed to the customs of far-distant lands. At the entrance to the Wata Daghe at Pollonarua lies a stone precisely similar to the Clach Brath at St. Oran's Chapel in Iona,† with a row of hollows, worn by the continual action of stone or crystal balls, which the passers-by turned sunwise to bring them luck. And here, in Anuradhapura, are three stone bulls, which women who have not been blessed with offspring also drag round sunwise, that they may insure the speedy birth of an heir. One of these seems to have formerly revolved on a pivot, but now main force does all.

Certainly the most venerated objects of

See "In the Himalayas," by C. F. Gordon Cumming, published by Chatto & Windus, pages 161-371, 436.

† See" In the Hebrides," page 72, by C. F. Gordon Cumming, published by Chatto & Windus.

From The New Review.

EXCURSION (FUTILE ENOUGH) TO PARIS;
AUTUMN 1851:

THROWN ON PAPER, WHEN GALLOPING, FROM SATUR-
DAY TO TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4-7, 1851.

BY THOMAS CARLYLE.

superstition are not often impressive to wandered alone through the labyrinth of the eye, and these are three insignificant grey pillars where only a flock of shaggy, little animals, measuring respectively three long-legged, reddish goats were nibbling feet six inches, two feet nine inches, and the parched grass, just as I have seen one foot seven inches. They lie on the British sheep finding greener pasture beturf beneath a great tree a curious fore-neath the shadow of the mighty rock temground to a most picturesque pilgrims' ple of our own ancestors at Stonehenge. camp of yellow palm-leaves like gigantic fans, banked up with withered boughs; women and children busy round their camp fires, and beyond the curling blue smoke rise the pillars of the Brazen Palace. Thousands of these primitive tents were scattered about in groups in the park-like grounds, and I had the good fortune to witness a very striking scene on the night of our arrival, when all night long, by the light of a glorious full moon, great companies, guided by bare-armed and bare-footed yellow-robed priests, circled round the Ruanweli dagoba, shouting Saadhu! (the Buddhist form of All hail!). But in making their circle they kept their left side towards the relic shrine, which in sunlore all the world over is the recognized form of invoking a curse instead of a blessing. But on the beautifully sculptured "moonstones" at the base of the great temple and palace stairs, all the animals, elephants, oxen, horses, lions, and sacred geese, have their right side towards the central lotus blossom, so they are making the orthodox sunwise turn.

MONDAY morning was dim, and at 7 I was again awake; an unslept, weary man. Walk through the old streets, eastward and northward. Rue Neuve des Petits Augustins, &c., &c., to Place des Victoires; places known to me of old: contrast of feelings seven and twenty years apart: eheu, eheu! The streets had all got trottoirs, the old houses seemed older and more dilapidated: crowds of poorlooking people, here and there a welldressed man, going as if to his " "office (bourgeois, in clean linen and coat); very small percentage of such, and all smoking. Louis XIV. in Place des Victoires: "Comment?" said I to two little dumpy men in white wide-awakes: "Est-ce qu' on a laissé cela, pendant la République?' They grinned a good-humored affirmation. Homewards by the Palais Royal; said Palais Royal very dirty, very dim; hardly anybody in it: new in the southern part; Louis Philippe's Palace made into an exhibition place for Arts et Métiers. Emerge, then, after some windings and returnings, into the Rue St. Honore; heart of the old Louvre and Carrousel almost gutted out, block of half-demolished buildings still standing; very dusty, very dim, all things. In the narrow streets and poor dark shops, &c., such figures poor old women, little children, the forlorn of the earth. "How do they live?" one asked oneself with sorrow and amazement. - Catarrh general still in our party, catarrh or other illness universal in it. Better get home as soon as possible?

Just beyond these bulls are forty rows of roughly hewn stone pillars, which even now stand twelve feet above the soil, and are doubtless sunk to a depth of many more a strange and unique sight. In each row there are forty of these granite monoliths, making sixteen hundred in all; some have fallen, some are half buried among the ruins, but there they are, and these are all that now remain above ground to mark the spot where the stately Brazen Palace once stood with all its crowds of learned priests. Of course there is not a vestige of the copper which once covered the pillars, nor of the resplendent_brazen tiles. I was told a legend - whether authentic or not I cannot say - that the final destruction of this grand building was due to fire kindled by a queen who, when sore beset by Malabar armies, and seeing no hope of escape from beleaguering foes, resolved that at least they should not After breakfast, with Lord Ashburton to enjoy the pillage of the palace, and so call on General Cavaignac, whom we uncaused all her most precious possessions derstood to be in town, of al! Frenchmen to be brought here and heaped together, the one I cared a straw to see. Rue Housand having with her own hands set fire to saié where it joins as continuation to Rue this costly funeral pyre, thereon sought Taitbout, north from Boulevard des Itadeath. Now the desolate ruins are for- liens; there in a modest-enough locality saken alike by priests and worshippers. I was the General's house. "Gone to the

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country (aux Départements), uncertain whither, uncertain when; clearly no Cavaignac for us!" We drove away again, disappointed in mind tant soit peu. Lift the top from the carriage, let me drive through the streets with you, and sit warm and smoke, while you do business:" that was my proposal to Lord Ashburton, who gladly assented: agreed to wait at his club" (Club of Frenchmen chiefly, and of some Etrangers, near the Boulevards, - quite "empty" at this time); home for a warmer coat, coachman and lackey to doff the carriage-roof and after some waiting we all duly rally (at Rue de la Paix I, at said club Lord Ashburton) and roll away eastward and into the heart of the city. Pleasant drive, and the best thing I could do to-day. Boulevards very stirring, airy, locomotive to a fair degree, but the vehiculation very light. Looked at the exotic old high houses; the exotic rolling crowd. Barrière St. Martin; turn soon after into the rightward streets, shops, lapidary or other, Lord Ashburton has to call at; I remain seated; learn we are near the Temple; decide to go thither. Old, pale-dingy edifice, shorn of all its towers; only a gate and dead wall to the street. Policeman issues on us as we enter; stony eyes, villainous look, has never heard of Louis XVI., or his imprisonment here. "Non, monsieur!" but from the other side of the gate comes an old female concierge who is fully familiar with it; she, brandishing her keys, will gladly show us all. Building seems totally empty a police station in some corner of it, that is all. Garde Mobile lived in it in 1848, before that it was a convent (under the Bourbons); Napoleon had already much altered it; filled up (comble) one storey of it, in order to make a pièce d'eau (not quite dry) in the garden. Old trees still up to their armpits there: a very strange proceeding for a pièce d'eau! Damp, brown, and dismal, all these emptinesses; grass growing on the pavements; big halls within (a grand royal hotel once, after the Templars ceased from it); on the second floor (once third?) the royal prisonapartments, religiously kept, are still there. Marie Antoinette's oratoire; the place of Cléry's scene of adieu: a grim locality in deed! Garde Mobile had drawn emblematic figures with burnt stick, in a few instances they had torn the walls, and made ugly big gaps with their bayonets. Our old concierge called the primitive republicans (in reference to Louis) "gueux," she seemed of royalist disposition, cut us off a bit of room-paper for souvenir,

accepted our three francs with many courtesies, and so we left the Temple, a memorable scene in one's archives.

Bronze-dealer next, manufacturer rather, -the greatest, (soi-disant) de l'univers: Lord Ashburton in want of such things went in, I with him, and we walked through various long suites of pendules, statuettes, chandeliers, &c. &c., -an ardent, greedy, acrid-looking person (he of "l'univers ") escorting us; almost frantic with the desire to sell to a milord for money. A vehement lean creature, evidently of talent in his kind, and of an eagerness I have not seen such an hungry pair of eyes. We bought nothing; I would not have had a gift of anything I saw there, the best de l'univers: “ tantis non egeo!" Out at last, and I decided not to enter any other, but to sit outside and smoke. Next place, a still finer bronze concern; indisputably de l'univers,

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but I wouldn't enter; sat smoking pleas antly in an old quaint street (Quartier du Temple somewhere) for three-quarters of an hour, and bought a glass of vin ordinaire (1d.) in the interim, and another for cocher, who seemed charmed and astonished. That suited me better than bronzes. But Lord Ashburton did buy a pendule and some fire or hearth apparatus here, all being so extremely good, and the chief man of the establishment, whom I soon after saw at the Hôtel Meurice delivering his goods, seemed to me again a decidedly clever, sagacious, courageous, broad, and energetic man. Mem. I had been in a Bookseller's (on Saturday), the cut of whose face indicated some talent, and a similar sincerity of greed and eagerness. A reflection rose gradually that here, in the industrial class, is the real backbone of French society; the truly ingenious and strong men of France are here, making money, while the politician, &c., &c., class is mere play-actorism, and will go to the devil by and bye! "Assuredly," as Mahomet says. - We returned by Marché des Innocents, by Rue St. Honoré and many streets, which to look upon was a real drama to me, So many queer stone objects, queer flesh-and-blood ones, seen just once and never again at all! Home about 5, to dine with Lady Sandwich at 7; I flung myself on bed, and actually caught a few minutes of sleep.

Lady Sandwich's dinner was wholly in the French fashion, this was its whole result for me, to see such a thing once. Company, besides us two who entered first Marquis Villa-real, a thick Portuguese man with big hoary head, and bor

fast that Lord Ashburton should go with me on Thursday, the Lady to stay behind till Saturday, while her cold mended, and then come. Très bien. Lady Sandwich has a second dinner for us to-day; out of which I apologise; to dine simply at four, and will keep myself peaceably at home. [Pause here: have to go to the Strand with an umbrella! Monday, 6 Oct., 1851.]

ing black eyes (glitter of black glass), a sturdy man, long ambassador in England - spoke English-had he had anything to say for me: M. and Mme. Thiers, madame a brunette of forty, pretty enough of her kind, an insignificant kind, hardly spoke with her; lastly, a Scotch Miss Ellice ("Bear's "); and our two "distinctions," Mérimée and Laborde, with a Comte (something) Roget, a poor thin man with two voices, bass and treble alterTuesday, 30 September, after breakfast nating, who said almost nothing with (then, I think) call on the Brownings, very either of them. Kickshaws, out of which sorry they that I am bound for home perI gathered a slice of undone beef, wines haps to-morrow, at any rate next day; will enough, out of which a drop of good sherry come to them to tea "if possible." At and tumbler of vin ordinaire; talk worth Meurice's, Mérimée again to take Lord nothing, tolerable only had one not been Ashburton to some show of ancient armor: obliged to manufacture French. Women I decline to go; stay there, and lounge and men together, all suddenly rise from in talk with Lady Ashburton, who knits. table, pushing back their chairs with fra- "Attaché to French Embassy," name forcas; then to the drawing-room for cof-gotten or never known, thin, half-squintfee and talk with Thiers and Mérimée, ing, insignificant, brown-skinned young who said or could say nothing notable, Parisian;-I go out to call on Lady heartily glad to get away, with twenty drops of some soporific liquid ("jeremy a laudanum preparation) from the good old lady which was to make me sleep. Eheu! - Mérimée sat again in the drawingroom at Meurice's; got upon German literature: "Jean Paul, a hollow fool of the first magnitude;' ""Goethe the best, but insignificant, unintelligible, a paltry kind of scribe manqué (as it seemed): ". I could stand no more of it, but lighted a cigar and adjourned to the street. "You impertinent blasphemous blockhead !" this was sticking in my throat; better to retire without bringing it out! such was the sin of the Jews, thought I; the assay of so much that goes on still, "crucify him, he is naught!" for which they still sell "old clothes." Good-humored banter on my return in, Mérimée being gone: then to bed, and sleep, alas! no sleep at all! A plunging and careering through chaos and cosmos, through life and through death, all things high and low huddled tragically together; now in my poor room at Scotsbrig (so quiet there, beside my poor old mother!), now at Chelsea, now beyond the moon: I did not sleep till six, and then hardly for an hour, such the noises, such my nerves. The "jeremy' (ten drops of it) had rather done me mischief, the other ten I poured out of window. Towards morning one practical thought rose in me, that I could get home again in a day; that I had no work here, and ought to get home! Out after eight, up Rue de la Paix, down towards Obelisk of Luxor again; bought an indicateur des Chemins de Fer. It was settled at break

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Sandwich; dinner in prospect there, and lamentations over mine and everybody's sickness. Dine at 4, on frugal starved beef with one glass of sherry; Lord Ashburton to dine below with certain Bruces (Lord Aylesbury's son and femme who is Sidney Herbert's sister) who are just come: enter said Lady Bruce, pretty but unbedeutend; enter Bruce, big nose, English noisy say-nothing; enter finally an Englishman who knows me, whom I cannot recollect to know, who proves at last to be Sheridan (Mrs. Norton's brother): talkee, talkee, nichts zu bedeuten. I withdraw to Browning's before seven. Great welcome there; and tea in quiet; Browning gives me (being cunningly led to it) copious account of the late "revolutions" at Florence, - such a fantastic piece of Drury-lane "revolution" as I have seldom heard of. With all such "revolutions" may the devil swiftly fly away! Home soon after ten; remember nothing of what I found there; -to bed, and happily get some reasonable sleep. Weather has now broken into showers. Lady Sandwich's dinner (an English party in honor of us) has consisted mainly of Sir (is he that?) Henry Bulwer, whom I never saw and care little about seeing.

Wednesday morning, damp walk; Nero's collar and string (gift for my wife), at the top of Rue de la Paix: cigars a little farther on, one or two, very bad, dear as in England. Settled now that Lord Ashburton is to go with me to-morrow, through in one day; the Lady to wait" till Saturday" when probably she will be able to follow. Très bien. Donothingism for

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