第42章

An unexpected scene now presented itself.The wide bed of the river was shaded on either side by groves of immense trees, whose branches stretched far over the channel; and not only beneath their shade, but in every direction, tents formed of talipot leaves were pitched, and a thousand men, women, and children lay grouped together; some were bathing in the river, some were sitting round their fires cooking a scanty meal, others lay asleep upon the sand, but all appeared to be congregated together for one purpose; and so various were the castes and costumes that every nation of the East seemed to have sent a representative.This was the season for the annual offerings to the Kattregam god, to whose temple these pilgrims were flocking, and they had made the dry bed of Valle river their temporary halting-place.A few days after, no less than 18,000 pilgrims congregated at Kattregam.

I was at this time shooting with my friend, Mr.H.Walters, then of the 15th Regiment.We waded up the bed of the river for about a mile, and then pitched the tent under some fine trees in the open forest.Several wild buffaloes were drinking in the river within a short distance of us;but thinking this a likely spot for elephants, we determined not to disturb the neighbourhood by firing a shot until we had first explored the country.After a walk of a couple of hours through fine open forest and small bushy plains, we came to the conclusion that there were very few elephants in the country, and we devoted ourselves to other game.

After a day or two spent in killing deer, a few wild buffaloes, and only one elephant, I felt convinced that we should never find the latter, in the dry state of the country, unless by watching at some tank at night.

We therefore moved our encampment inland about twenty-five miles from Yalle.Here there is a large tank, which I concluded would be the resort of elephants.

A long day's journey through a burning sun brought us to Sitrawelle.

This is a small village, about six miles inward from the sea-coast village of Kesinde.Here the natives brought us plantains and buffalo milk, while we took shelter from the sun under a splendid tamarind tree.

Opposite to this was a 'bo'-tree; (very similar to the banian-tree)this grew to an extraordinary size; the wide spreading branches covered about half an acre of ground, and the trunk measured upwards of forty feet in circumference.The tamarind-tree was nearly the same size; and Inever saw together two such magnificent specimens of vegetation.A few paces from this spot, a lake of about four miles' circuit lay in the centre of a plain; this was surrounded by open forests and jungles, all of which looked like good covers for game.Skirting the opposite banks of the lake, we pitched the tent under some shady trees upon a fine level sward.By this time it was nearly dusk, and I had barely time to stroll out and kill a peacock for dinner before night set in.

The next morning, having been joined by my friend, Mr.P.Braybrook, then government agent of this district, our party was increased to three, and seeing no traces of elephants in this neighbourhood, we determined to proceed to a place called Wihare-welle, about six miles farther inland.

Our route now lay along a broad causeway of solid masonry.On either side of this road, stone pillars of about twelve feet in height stood in broken, rows, and lay scattered in every direction through the jungle.

Ruined dagobas and temples jutted their rugged summits above the tree-tops, and many lines of stone columns stood in parallel rows, the ancient supports of buildings of a similar character to those of Pollanarua and Anarajahpoora.We were among the ruins of ancient Mahagam.One of the ruined buildings had apparently rested upon seventy-two pillars.These were still erect, standing in six lines of twelve columns; every stone appeared to be about fourteen feet high by two feet square and twenty-five feet apart.This building must therefore have formed an oblong of 300 feet by 150.Many of the granite blocks were covered with rough carving; large flights of steps, now irregular from the inequality of the ground, were scattered here and there; and the general appearance of the ruins was similar to that of Pollanarua, but of smaller extent.The stone causeway which passed through the ruins was about two miles in length, being for the most part overgrown with low jungle and prickly cactus.I traversed the jungle for some distance until arrested by the impervious nature of the bushes; but wherever Iwent, the ground was stewed with squared stones and fallen brickwork overgrown with rank vegetation.

The records of Ceylon do not afford any satisfactory information concerning the original foundation of this city.The first time that we hear of it is in the year 286 B.C.; but we have no account of the era or cause of its desertion.Although Mahagam is the only vestige of an ancient city in this district, there are many ruined buildings and isolated dagobas of great antiquity scattered throughout the country.Iobserved on a peak of one of the Kattregam hills large masses of fallen brickwork, the ruins of some former buildings, probably coeval with Mahagam.The whole of this district, now so wild and desolate, must in those days have been thickly populated and highly cultivated, although, from the present appearance of the country, it does not seem possible that it has ever altered its aspect since the Creation.

Descending a steep bank shaded by large trees, we crossed the bed of the Manick Ganga (`Jewel River').The sand was composed of a mixture of mica, quartz, sapphire, ruby, and jacinth, but the large proportion of ruby sand was so extraordinary that it seemed to rival Sindbad the Sailor's vale of gems.The whole of this was valueless, but the appearance of the sand was very inviting, as the shallow stream in rippling over it magnified the tiny gems into stones of some magnitude.