"It seems almost like heresy to say so," remarked the cultured and amiable wife of our host, an English official, "but one does sometimes weary of the sameness in the verdure of the tropics, lovely as it is, while remembering with a sigh the beautiful, varying autumn and the joyous springtime of more northern regions. Here we are always upon a dead level, so to speak; no contrasts present themselves. Eternal summer palls upon one. Perpetual youth in the vegetable kingdom," she added, "seems as unnatural and undesirable as it would be in human life. We have no winter, spring, or autumn in our Ceylon calendar."
The equable and fruitful climate of the island is not produced, as is the case upon the west coast of California, by the influence of the ocean. There the Kurosiwo or j.a.panese current, which closely follows the trend of the land like a mighty river, with a constant temperature resembling the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic, and a width of five hundred miles, makes a semi-tropical climate of a lat.i.tude which is often Arctic farther inland. Its equatorial situation alone endows Ceylon with endless summer.
It is curious to observe how the nature of some plants and trees is changed by transplanting them hither, and the same is also remarked of the average individual who has come from other less genial lands to settle in an equatorial climate. If it proves to be a healthy one, he takes very kindly to the delightful do-nothing of such a region, together with its lazy, sensuous enjoyments, losing in a large degree the energy and ambition naturally developed among the people of the north. The moral is obvious. He who runs may read. It requires a colder clime, with a soil not too willing, to awaken human energy, and to place man at his best. Luxury enervates; necessitous labor strengthens.
Fruit-bearing trees transplanted from the United States, such as peach, cherry, and pear trees, have in many instances ceased to produce fruit, and have become partial evergreens. Experiments with grapevines from northern climates have met with similar results. In nearly the same lat.i.tude, however, though in opposite hemispheres, the transplanting of some fruit trees, and especially of the vine, seems to impart fresh life and fruitfulness. Those brought from France and Italy put on new vigor when they are domesticated on the Pacific coast of this continent; while the mission grapevine and others native in California, exported thence to the countries named, flourish marvelously and produce abundantly. At this writing, news comes to us of the partial failure of the grape crop in some of the vineyards of southern France, and also that, following out the results of late experiences, the old vines are to be replaced by the introduction of California varieties. The grapevine does not seem adapted to tropical climes. It is not a perennial growth, but must enjoy its long winter rest in order to thrive. Even in mild, equable southern California, its fruit-bearing branches are cut back annually to the main stalk, where the princ.i.p.al life is stored. The new branches of the mission grape, as it is called in this region, produce bunches of the luscious fruit yearly, which often weigh four and five pounds each; but as we have said, the new growth is cut away every year after fruiting.
Checking the vagrant inclination of pen and brain to travel afield, let us turn to matters more relative to the expressed purpose of these pages.
The island of Ceylon is favorably situated outside the region of the cyclones which so frequently prevail in the Bay of Bengal and the neighboring ocean, while it is also free from the hurricanes of the Mauritius Sea and the volcanic outbursts of the Eastern Archipelago.
There is no evidence of seismic disturbance in this region, either past or present. One does not leave waterspouts entirely behind in the Gulf of Siam, on reaching the sh.o.r.e of this island. Just before the season of the monsoons, they appear sometimes off this coast. They are never, however, of a fierce, whirlwind character, so as to cause any serious harm.
As regards climatic conditions, the coolest season of the year is during the prevalence of the southwest monsoons, or from the end of April to the end of October. The northeast monsoon is of shorter duration, prevailing during November, December, January, and February.
Both these periods are ushered in by heavy thunder-storms and a liberal downpour of rain. The reader who has never experienced an equatorial land-storm has no conception of the fury of the elements under such circ.u.mstances. The continued blaze of the fiery lightning and the deafening crash which echoes through the skies are beyond description. Timid people try to hide themselves in the dark corners of the bungalows, while even the natives and animals often become tremulous with fear. It must be admitted that fatal accidents are frequent enough during these thunder-storms to keep an apprehension of danger constantly alive. In the mountain regions about Kandy and Ratnapura, where the echoes supplement the grand electric discharges, the deafening noise and reverberation can only be compared to the quick, sharp, detonating reports of heavy artillery. The monsoons occur with the utmost regularity, both here and over a large portion of the neighboring continent, and they are so regular that their arrival can be calculated upon nearly to a day. Electrical phenomena, thunder and lightning, are, as just intimated, often very grand. So, also, is the prevalence of optical displays, such as rainbows and mirage. As to moonlight nights and their dazzling exhibitions, like those of the tropical regions generally, words are inadequate to express their splendor, at once so brilliant and so calm.
The climate is very much like that of Java, humid and hot, especially in the southern portion nearest to the coast; it is, however, considerably more moderate than that of the mainland of India.
Although so very warm, it is equable; one is aware of what to expect and can prepare for it. Occasional frosts occur in the highlands, but snow is unknown even on the mountain tops. The length of days, owing to the proximity to the equator, does not vary more than one hour, the sun setting at Colombo at about six o"clock all the year round. At Dondra Head, the extreme southern point of Ceylon, the difference between the longest and shortest day of the year is only forty minutes.
This interesting island is rich in prehistoric monuments, Buddhist temples, and lofty dagobas, some of which were originally over three hundred feet in height, exceeding that of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris, by sixty feet. This, be it remembered, was representative of a civilization which existed upon an island of the Indian Ocean between two and three thousand years ago. The lofty, gorgeous colored, and eccentric temples which the traveler regards with such curious interest in India belong to a much more modern period. They are structures which have been raised oftentimes upon the site of former heathen shrines. So in Rome, many of the churches which we visit to-day and accredit with great antiquity are rebuilt upon edifices formerly dedicated to strange G.o.ds. Some remain intact, like the Temple of Hercules and the Pantheon. These Ceylon dagobas are only one cla.s.s of monuments, and are to be considered in connection with other vestiges of vast public structures, the origin and purpose of which have been lost sight of in the lapse of ages. Slabs of granite engraven with half-effaced inscriptions in Pali, and in unknown characters, are still found, mystifying the most learned antiquarians, while the significance of others has been made plain by means of commendable patience and scholarly acquirements. What an object lesson is here presented, attesting the evanescence of all mundane power and glory. Here are evidences of vast and costly enterprises, such as the rearing of grand monuments whose legitimate object can only be conjectured, and the names of whose builders are forgotten. The annals of the Singhalese, to whom we are not accustomed to give much credit as a literary people, yet afford consecutive historical data for twenty-four centuries back, though, as in most oriental countries, the records of their past combine truth and fable almost indiscriminately, so that it is often difficult to distinguish one from the other. These Eastern writers had a royal mode of a.s.sertion, much more impressive than convincing; as regards the general fidelity of these annals, however, there is no reasonable doubt, after allowing for what may be termed poetical license of expression. We may well ask ourselves how many lands can, like Ceylon, tell so much of their past history in authentic records verified by enduring monuments. As is well known, we in America go back only about four centuries before the trail of history is lost. To be sure, conjecture is abundant enough, but conjecture is not history.
Compared with the probable age of the globe, how quickly history fades into fable! Aga.s.siz thought this to be the oldest country of which we have any reliable knowledge. The Western mound builders were undoubtedly a distinctive race, yet who can tell their story? The mysteries of Yucatan are unsolved. There was a civilization once existing in Peru whose history is to us a blank. Of the origin of the Sphinx, older than the Pyramids, what do we really know? On Easter Island, in the South Pacific, are indestructible evidences of an ancient people, who possessed a written language so old that no one can decipher its admirably graven characters. Where did that island come from, and what became of its people? Were they and their country submerged, like another Atlantis, and is this island the apex of a mountain range left above the devouring ocean to tell the tale? This is not a wild supposition. It has been suggested and declared possible by more than one astute and scholarly writer upon physical geography.
As to antiquity, the monuments of Egypt enable us to trace back the history of civilized man only six thousand years, though all intelligent archaeologists know that the earth must have been inhabited by human beings an infinite number of years prior to that period.
Philology and geology are sufficient to prove this.
Singhalese annals record in detail the reign of one hundred and sixty sovereigns during a period extending from the conquest of the island, B. C. 543, by Wijaya, a prince from northern India, to the deposition of Wikram Raja Sinka by the English in 1815. This was the last king of Kandy, the then native capital of Ceylon. Sufficient is recorded of the personal character of Wijaya, the early conqueror of the island, to prove his utter barbarity, so that we are naturally led still more to wonder whence came the artists--for artists they were--who designed and built such cities as Anuradhapura and Pollonarua, the first of which was probably founded during his reign. Either the Singhalese as a race must have retrograded in a most marvelous manner, while other nationalities were in the line of progress, or foreign artists and builders must have been imported to rear such grand and beautiful capitals in this Indian isle. Does the reader realize that our best architects to-day go back for suggestions to the elaborate and elegant ornamentations which prevailed at this period in stone columns and lofty facades? Though scarred by warfare with the ages, these still form rare and choice object lessons to the appreciative artist.
Among the remarkable evidences of great antiquity in Ceylon, we recall the elaborate cave-temples of Dambula, hewn out of the primitive rock, and which have existed at least two thousand years, representing an infinite amount of patient labor, which must have been executed with tools admirably adapted to the purpose a.s.signed. The princ.i.p.al temple--there are four of them--was dedicated to Buddha, whose creed is still the prevailing faith of Asia,--a doctrine ages older than our so-called Christian religion. The entrance to the princ.i.p.al cave-temple is elaborately carved in the solid stone, and is wonderfully well-preserved. The design is harmonious with the purpose, presenting a score or more of figures in bas-relief, with embellishments appropriate to the Buddhist faith. Two mammoth figures, one on either side, represent, probably, guardian spirits or G.o.ds.
Just within, there is an altar with a sitting figure of Buddha, opposite the entrance. It is interesting to note the ornamental entrance to the temple, as exhibiting the degree of artistic appreciation which existed here in Ceylon between two and three thousand years ago. This largest temple is one hundred and eighty feet long, eighty wide, and twenty-five high, a gloomy vault at best, containing a gigantic rec.u.mbent stone statue of Buddha, forty-seven feet in length, the head resting on the right hand, indicating repose, one of the favorite positions in which the prophet is usually represented in the temples of Ceylon. The chambers or halls, which are hollowed out of the rock, are reached by long flights of stone steps.
Each temple is most grotesquely painted with scenes supposed to represent the past history of the island. In the first of the caves is the immense statue already spoken of. In the others are those of ancient kings in heroic size, but not nearly so large as that of Buddha. On the several walls are rudely-painted tournament scenes, elephant hunts, and half-effaced battle pictures. Some of the apartments have iron-grated windows, and were evidently places of confinement for political prisoners, some time in the far past. An old Buddhist priest is in charge, grumpy, reticent, and apparently dissatisfied with himself and the world generally. In the first and largest of the stone chambers of this huge rock at Dambula, besides the large rec.u.mbent figure of Buddha, there is a statue of Vishnu, held especially sacred, and before which solemn oaths in litigated cases were administered, without any other recourse for settlement.
This was when one of the parties agreed to abide by the solemn oath of the other, to be given in specified form before this statue of Vishnu.
It is a rudely executed figure in granite, as indeed are all the statues of the period. In the second chamber or temple there are half a hundred statues of Buddha, besides representatives in stone of various heathen G.o.ds, painted in yellow, blue, and white robes, but why the multiplicity of Buddhas it would be difficult to divine. In front of the cave-temples is a flourishing boo-tree, and a small grove of cocoanut palms which have grown to a great size. As usual, centuries of age are claimed for the first-named tree. Round about the plain, among the rude, wild vegetable growth, a peculiar cactus is seen, a familiar acquaintance, first met with on the plains of Mexico.
Its thick leaves form also its branches, each leaf being attached to its neighbor endwise, like links of a chain, and being bordered by a bright yellow ruffle of profuse blossoms. These cave-temples of Dambula are cut in a solitary ma.s.s of rock, rising from the otherwise level plain to about five hundred feet in height and four times that in length. This is undoubtedly the most remarkable group of cave-temples upon the island.
One is vividly reminded by these peculiar and enduring structures of a similar famous place of Hindu worship cut out of the solid rock on the island of Elephanta in the outer harbor of Bombay, and also of those found at Ellora and Carlee, in India proper. These three Buddhist temples are known to have been in existence for about twenty centuries, and are very similar in design. The elaborate sculptures in bas-relief which decorate them are almost identical in character, but they have little or no artistic merit, being in fact as crude as Chinese or j.a.panese idols, mere caricatures as seen from a modern point of view, and yet they are clearly the result of a distinctive purpose. As to depicting the human figure with any regard to its anatomy, that was not understood by these artists, any more than are the laws of perspective by the Chinese or j.a.panese of to-day. So in ancient Egyptian sculpture, an approximation to the true outline of the human figure is all that is attempted. The stone pillars and figures at Elephanta, so venerable from age and a.s.sociation, were nearly destroyed by French cannon-b.a.l.l.s, the guns being brought on sh.o.r.e at considerable trouble, and maliciously directed, for this purpose. It seemed to be a fixed principle with the soldiers of the first Napoleon to purloin everything of value which was portable in the countries they invaded, and what they could not steal and carry away, with true barbaric instinct they destroyed. Churches, charitable inst.i.tutions, hospitals, were all alike looted by these French vandals. Even tombs were invaded by them in their rapacity, as at Granada, where the leaden coffins in the royal vaults were pried open with bayonets in search of treasures supposed to have been buried with the bodies. At Seville, they broke open the coffin of Murillo, wherein finding nothing of commercial value, they scattered the ashes of the great master in art to the wind. It will also be remembered that Marshal Soult--to his lasting disgrace be it recorded--treated the ashes of Cervantes in a similar manner; a most petty and disgraceful meanness for a marshal of France to be guilty of.
The Mahawanso, "Genealogy of the Great," a native chronicle, contains a history of the several dynasties which have controlled the island from B. C. 543 down to A. D. 1758. This unique and remarkable Singhalese book is a metrical chronicle written in Pali verse, and forms what is universally received as an authentic and most invaluable record of the national history of Ceylon. A scholarly translation of the same is now extant in English. Pali, as the reader doubtless knows, is a dead language founded upon the Sanscrit, though Buddhists claim that it is the original of all tongues. This is an a.s.sumption easily disproved by Egyptian inscriptions dating back over six thousand years. The island, under its Sanskrit name of Lanka, is also the subject of a mythical poem of the Hindus, and its conquest by Rama is the theme of the Ramayana, doubtless one of the most ancient epics in existence. The Mahawanso, though the oldest, is by no means the only Singhalese chronicle of a historic character. It was designed by a priest named Mahanamo, who compiled the early portion, commencing five centuries and more before Christ, and bringing it down to the year 301 of our era. After this it was continued by able successors, who carried on the original plan of the beginner to the period when the English took forcible possession of Ceylon. There are several comprehensive ma.n.u.scripts devoted to native history, written upon talipot palm-leaf, carefully preserved in the museum at Colombo.
Besides these important records there is abundant evidence of a tangible character to show that there once existed upon this island a great and powerful empire in a condition of advanced civilization.
The gigantic remains of palaces and temples tell us this. There are also evidences of a system of irrigation which was remarkably perfect in conception and consummation, though it must have been achieved by the simplest means, that is, by the aid of no mechanical facilities such as we possess. This system covered the face of the country, north and south, like a network. Immense lakes were formed by damming the natural outlets of the mountain streams at the mouth of extensive valleys, and that was all that was artificial about them. Nature had prepared the way; still, the amount of labor involved in the practical application of the principle was enormous. The remains of these great reservoirs thus created are objects of admiration to our modern engineers, not only for the boldness and magnificence of their construction, but also for the beneficence of their purpose. The marvelous ruins of these reservoirs are the proudest and most significant monuments which remain of the former greatness of this country. No constructions for a similar purpose found in any part of the world have ever surpa.s.sed them. So long as they were in repair and fully operative, the people of Ceylon had no occasion to go abroad for rice upon which to subsist. The grand supply of water for the distributing tanks was conducted from the distant mountains, through dense forests, across broad ravines, and around the sides of intervening hills, by stout channel-ways miles and miles in length. No considerable population could have been supported in a country subject to prolonged droughts without the aid of some such fertilizing agency, and no other system would have been so well adapted to the raising of the staple grain of the island. Most of these artificial lakes are now in ruins, overgrown with jungle gra.s.s, and in some instances by heavy forests.
No one can truly say what caused the decadence of the several ancient capitals now lying in the dust, leaving only a blank memorial of their former existence. It is a puzzling question as to what could have swept a population of millions from the face of the globe and left no clearer record of their occupancy and departure. When there is pointed out to the traveler in j.a.pan a location where a big and populous city once stood, but which is now only a series of thrifty grain-fields, no great surprise is felt. j.a.panese houses are only constructed, as a rule, of bamboo frames with tissue coverings, but the ruined cities of Ceylon were built of stone and brick, presumedly indestructible except by some great and general catastrophe. The ruins of Anuradhapura show that in mediaeval times it must have been a city containing a vast concourse of people. We know that it was recognized as the capital of Ceylon from three to four hundred years prior to the birth of Christ down to the year 770 of the present era. It has been justly called the Palmyra of Ceylon, and was contemporary with Babylon and Nineveh. It was a royal city, wherein ninety kings reigned in succession, and its dimensions exceeded the present area of London. What a grand and imperial metropolis it must have been in its pristine glory! At a time when England was still in a condition of barbarism, this capital of an island in the Indian Ocean was at the zenith of its prosperity, enjoying luxuries which argued a high condition of civilization. The reason for selecting this plain in the heart of the country as a suitable location for its capital is not obvious, except that from the earliest ages the spot has been sacred to the votaries of Buddha. Its site is near the centre of the great plain which occupies the northern portion of the island, about one hundred miles from Kandy, and three hundred feet above the level of the sea.
Here, amid tall trees and thick undergrowth, are scattered hundreds, nay, thousands of stone columns, huge monoliths, granite statues, fragments of grand palaces, and elaborate public buildings, which once adorned broad and level thoroughfares, while the surrounding country exhibited a wide expanse of rice-fields irrigated by numberless ca.n.a.ls, together with all the beauty of cultivated tropical vegetation. The early chronicles tell us of the surprising loveliness of this region round about the ancient metropolis, the brilliancy of its native jewels, the fertility of its carefully nurtured soil, its magnificent palms, the abundance of its fruits, the sagacity of its elephants, and the constant fragrance of its spice-laden atmosphere.
Anuradhapura! how little we of the nineteenth century have even heard of its people, who built temples of stone and palaces of marble,--a nation which lived for twenty centuries in oriental splendor; a city which was rich, populous, and famous, long before Rome had risen to power; a capital which achieved such ambitious architectural results only to sink at last suddenly and mysteriously into oblivion. What the possible purpose could have been in creating such a singular page in the annals of history as the building and peopling of a giant metropolis on this Indian island, whose accomplished mission ill.u.s.trates only the mutability of all terrestrial things, only that inscrutable Wisdom which rules the universe can answer.
Except the mountain range which so nearly divides the island at its centre, and the spurs which it throws out at intervals, there are few elevations worthy of notice in Ceylon. One, known as Mihintale, about a thousand feet in height, dominates the ruins of the ancient city just described, and is so perpendicular that to reach its summit one must avail himself of the artificial steps cut in the solid rock.
These stones, smoothed and indented by centuries of use, are said to have been thus worn by thousands and thousands of pilgrims, who ascended to the shrine above upon their knees. This notable hill, which almost deserves the name of mountain, was fortified by the aborigines in the olden time, as shown by irregular lines of defensive works in stone, whose dismantled and disintegrated condition testifies to their antiquity. On the summit stands a shrine, showing that it was held to be a sacred spot from the earliest ages, probably long before the date when the now mouldering capital was founded. The view afforded on either hand from the apex of the mount embraces the far-away ocean, and the nearer sea of undulating forests and groves of palms, clad in the exquisite verdure of the tropics.
Anuradhapura was the largest city in the island, and is confidently a.s.serted to have contained, in its prime, three million people, over four hundred thousand of whom were fighting-men. But there were others, considerable in size and importance, which existed during the period of its prosperity. The records show that this ancient metropolis was fifty-two miles in circ.u.mference, or sixteen miles across in a straight line from the north to the south gate, covering two hundred and fifty-six square miles! What have we in modern times to equal these ruins in s.p.a.ciousness? Perhaps some deduction should be made from such remarkable figures. Of course, the reader will understand that the area here given was not actually covered by solid blocks of dwellings. Private residences were generally surrounded by small but elaborate gardens. There was ample air s.p.a.ce about the temples, palaces, and public buildings, together with large open commons for military parades, for public baths, for elephant fights, for political forums, and market-places. s.p.a.ciousness and elegance were the characteristics of this ancient Singhalese metropolis, this grand city of the plains, where one stands to-day surrounded by centuries of tangible history. The eye rests upon miles and miles of broken stone statues of bulls, elephants, sarcophagi, and heavy capitals of granite columns, many of whose delicate, artistic capitals and designs are still intact.
All oriental narrative is tinctured with exaggeration, but Sir James Emerson Tennent, so long officially connected with the island, and personally familiar with the ruins of Anuradhapura, says no one who visits the place to-day can doubt that Ceylon, in the zenith of its prosperity, contained ten times its present population; and as he wrote this in 1859, when the aggregate was about one million, he wished to signify that the number of inhabitants, at the period to which he referred, was probably ten millions. The same writer tells us that this density of population must have been preserved through many centuries, in spite of revolutions and invasions, in order to produce the results, the ruins of which are still visible to all observers.
That the people of Anuradhapura were early and skillful workers in bra.s.s, iron, and gla.s.s, articles unearthed among these ruins abundantly testify. Further explorations and excavations will doubtless result in valuable information. Five or six feet of earth, upon an average, must be removed before the process of uncovering can be said to have fairly commenced, so that the prospective labor of exhumation is simply immense. Still, almost every year brings some new enthusiast to the front, whose time and money are freely devoted to this object until his ardor is appeased, and he leaves the field to some one else. A steadily sustained effort, aided and directed by the government, might accomplish something worth recording, but such desultory and spasmodic attempts are of very little account. At Pompeii, where, by persistent effort, a whole city has been unearthed, we see what such exhumation signifies, though the circ.u.mstances are not precisely similar, the one having been suddenly covered by an eruption of the neighboring volcano, while the other yielded to the wear of time and the effect of foreign invasions. A score of cities, however, like Pompeii would not cover the area once occupied by this vanished metropolis.
The ancient capital was named in honor of a certain prince, Anuradha, by whom it was founded twenty-five centuries ago. A thousand years since, this city was still populous, gay, and beautiful, with fragrant gardens, thriving shops, proud dwellings, gilded palaces, lofty temples, religious processions, and frequent displays of royal pageants. The Singhalese chronicles are full of references to agricultural prosperity, to ample herds, the breeding of cattle, and the extensive culture of grain. They speak of women who were treated with great deference, and of priestesses and queens who held high places with honor. Rich furniture was used in the dwellings, and costly textures for dress, these of course imported from other countries. Though the inhabitants of Anuradhapura were not themselves a maritime people, they were constantly visited by others from afar, who brought with them rich goods to exchange for pearls and precious stones. We know that Ceylon was rich in these at that period, even as she is at the present time, and exported peac.o.c.ks, apes, and ivory. In the ancient Hebrew records, the names of these were the same as those known at present to the natives in this island. To-day, mutability is written upon its scattered and neglected ruins in a language all can understand. Who can wonder that individuals perish and are forgotten, when the entire population of a great, imperial metropolis thus vanish, while their n.o.blest and most enduring works crumble into dust?
The significance of such instances should humble the proudest mortal who walks the earth. The spot where the Brazen Palace, so-called, once stood in the ancient capital still shows scores of granite columns in the shape of undressed monoliths, projecting about twelve feet above the level of the ground, upon some of which there exist the remains of elaborate capitals, closely resembling the Grecian Corinthian order.
This edifice, dating about two hundred years before Christ, was not the royal residence, but a palace devoted to accommodation of the priesthood, and was originally nine stories in height, covering a square of ground measuring two hundred and thirty feet each way. "The roof," according to native chronicles, "was of bra.s.s, and its great hall, which was supported by golden pillars, also contained a throne of solid ivory," though what the Buddhist priesthood required of a "throne" we are not informed.
This description of the great hall with its golden pillars sounds perhaps like an oriental exaggeration, but the people of those days came originally from India, where such examples of extravagance were by no means unknown during the Mogul dynasty. The probability is that the Brazen Palace was in reality the royal residence. Speaking of Indian extravagance, we all remember the peac.o.c.k throne of the king of Delhi,--a throne of solid gold, six feet long and four feet broad, surmounted by a canopy of gold, and supported by twelve pillars composed of the same precious material. The back of this costly structure was made to represent a peac.o.c.k with its tail-feathers expanded, hence the name. The natural colors of the feathers were closely imitated with rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and other precious stones. The total value of the whole exceeded thirty million dollars.
The author has stood within this royal chamber at Delhi, but the gorgeous throne has long since disappeared. Enough, however, still remains to show what regal splendor must have existed in this marvelous palace. These Mogul rulers used costly gems, gold and silver, together with precious marbles and rarest stones, as freely as modern potentates employ granite, combined with bricks and mortar. The wealth of the then known world was in the possession of a very few individuals, and the poor were all the poorer in comparison; despotism was rampant, and royalty commanded at will the unpaid services of the million.
Near the site of the Brazen Palace of Anuradhapura are several dagobas, partially hidden by rank tropical verdure. One of these peculiar structures was originally over four hundred feet in height, antedating the Christian era by many years. Does the reader realize what an amount of solid masonry such a structure represents? When we say that this dagoba was nearly twice the height of Bunker Hill Monument, and that it was three hundred and sixty feet in diameter at the base, the comparison may aid the imagination. Verily, nothing but the Egyptian pyramids compare in magnitude with these shrines of Ceylon, while no modern engineering enterprise excels in immensity the artificial lakes which were created upon her surface. One writer has gone into a careful calculation regarding the structure, and says that it contained material enough originally to build a wall ten feet high from London to Edinburgh.
These peculiarly shaped dagobas are scattered all over the island, each being the receptacle of some saintly relic. Tradition says they are thus formed to resemble a bubble floating upon the water, but they are really bell-shaped, and most of them have a low, ornamental spire.
Near the summit is the secret chamber wherein is deposited the sacred treasure. Time effaces all mundane things. With the exception of the Temple of the Tooth, at Kandy, no one can say what special relic any one of these remarkable structures was originally designed to shelter.
Let us quote for the reader"s edification an ancient native description of this famous city of the plain when it was in its glory.
It is a literal translation from the original:--
"The magnificent city of Anuradhapura is refulgent from the numerous temples and palaces whose golden pinnacles glitter in the sky. The sides of its streets are strewed with black sand; they are spanned with arches bearing flags of gold and silver; on either side are vessels of the same precious metals, containing flowers; and in niches are statues holding lamps of great value. In the streets are mult.i.tudes of people, armed with bows and arrows; also men powerful as G.o.ds, who with their huge swords could cut asunder a tusk elephant at one blow. Elephants, horses, carts, and myriads of people are constantly pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing. There are jugglers, dancers, and musicians of various nations, whose chank sh.e.l.ls and other musical instruments are ornamented with gold. The distance from the princ.i.p.al gate to the opposite gate is four gaws (sixteen miles); and from the north gate to the south gate four gaws. The princ.i.p.al streets are Moon Street, Great King Street, and Great Sandy Street. In Chandrawakkawidiya are eleven thousand houses, many of them being two stories in height; the smaller streets are innumerable. The palace has immense ranges of buildings, some of two, others of three stories in height; and its subterranean apartments are of great extent."
Sir J. E. Tennent gathers from various ancient sources, including the veritable Mahawanso, that Anuradhapura, between four and five centuries before Christ, contained the temples of various religions,--"temples and palaces whose golden pinnacles glittered in the sky,"--besides s.p.a.cious public gardens and free baths, together with almshouses and hospitals, in which animals as well as human beings were tenderly cared for.
One king gave the "corn of a thousand fields" for the support of the hospitals, another set aside a certain quant.i.ty of rice to feed the squirrels which frequented the city gardens, while a third monarch displayed his skill in treating the diseases of elephants, horses, and domestic cattle. The streets were lined with grand shops and bazaars.
On festive occasions, barbers and dressers were stationed at each entrance to the capital for the convenience of strangers who visited the city. Public officials vied with each other in their patriotic deeds designed for the public good.
In one corner of the widespread ruins of Anuradhapura there is now a small village, with a Christian mission and school for the native children. There are also a few bazaars, a post-office, telegraph station, and a court house, which serve, by affording a strong contrast to the former splendor which reigned here, to emphasize the historic grandeur of the defunct capital.
CHAPTER IV.
Oriental Dagobas.--Ancient City of Pollonarua.--Laid out like our Modern Capitals.--Unexplored Ruins.--Elaborate Stone Carvings.--Colossal Stone Figure.--The "Buried Cities."--The Singhalese not a Progressive People.--Modern History of Ceylon.--Captured by the English.--The "Resplendent Island."--Commercial Prosperity.--Increasing Foreign Population.--Under English Rule.--Native Soldiers.--Christian Sects and Churches.--Roman Catholic Church.--Expulsion of the Jesuits.
The very interesting and in many respects unique ruins of Anuradhapura, like those pertaining to the city of Pollonarua, with its curious and enormous ma.s.s of crumbling brick-work in the shape of a dagoba surmounted by a temple, are supposed to have been thus mouldering in the dust for more than six centuries. These dagobas, doting with age, as we have shown, are relic shrines, like in purpose to the paG.o.das of Burmah, which they somewhat resemble. Their substantial outside finish must have given them very much the appearance of being built of pure white marble. In dimensions they are exceeded only by the pyramids of Ghizeh, but there is no genius or architectural excellence evinced in the construction of either. Judged by the light of our day, there is no legitimate reason for their existence. Religious fanaticism gave birth to one, and personal pride to the other. They neither subserve the purpose of utility nor of beauty. As monuments of personal aggrandizement, or as individual memorials, what total failures they have proved! Think for a single moment of the vast contrast between either of the Egyptian pyramids, or these bell-shaped dagobas, with their plain stuccoed coverings, and that modern shrine and tomb combined,--the Taj Mahal of Agra. The pyramids and dagobas are crude, barbaric embodiments of bulk and imposing loftiness; the other is a realization in marble of a poetic dream. The former are remarkable only for magnitude; the latter, for its exquisite grace.
There is sufficient evidence still left us to show that the olden city of Pollonarua was laid out in a perfectly systematic way, and built up in the most regular manner. Its founders evidently started with a well-perfected purpose. It was not a chance settlement of a few cabins, which gradually increased hither and thither in various directions until it a.s.sumed the proportions of a metropolis.
Notwithstanding the present confusion, the general features of its topography are clearly discernible amid the mounds of mouldering material. The main street from the princ.i.p.al entrance-gate continued perfectly straight for four miles between royal palms to the opposite extreme of the city, crossed at right angles in the centre by a similar thoroughfare, thus forming two main streets, which terminated at four great gates of entrance and exit to and from the town,--north, east, south, and west. From these main streets radiated lateral and smaller roadways, evidently occupied by humbler dwellings, together with an occasional temple or other public building. The ruins of what is known as the Treasure House of Pollonarua are unusually interesting, as exhibiting some of the finest and best preserved bas-reliefs to be found in Ceylon, and as showing also certain marked peculiarities of skill in architecture which prevailed in pre-Christian times. On either side of the princ.i.p.al thoroughfares of the city were handsome and substantial dwellings, palaces, and sacred temples. The latter, with their gorgeous gilded domes, were dedicated to various pagan G.o.ds. Other s.p.a.cious buildings and open areas were devoted to pleasure entertainments for the ma.s.ses of the people, not unlike the modern idea of public gardens and outdoor theatres.
Here and there labyrinths of unexplored ruins are entirely hidden by lofty, broad-limbed trees and a tangle of low, dense shrub, as though the big city had been originally built in a forest. We pause, and gaze thoughtfully at the desolation which speaks so emphatically in its dumb way. It is the language in which the decline and fall of great empires is written,--monuments of mutability.
"Tully was not so eloquent as thee, Thou nameless column with the buried base."
It is not to be wondered at that learned European antiquarians make pilgrimages. .h.i.ther to see with their own eyes what others have graphically described, and to translate for themselves these black-letter records of by-gone ages. We met at Pollonarua one enthusiastic traveler who had neither eyes nor ears for anything else but that which related to the almost forgotten past. The mouldering ruins of Ceylon were food and drink to him, with which he gorged himself to repletion. Each new student of antiquity who comes. .h.i.ther, being informed of the progress of those who preceded him, takes up the thread of discovery where they left it, and adds something to illumine the darkness which enshrouds these sombre ruins.
It could not always have been peaceful in these populous cities of the past, where strange G.o.ds and strange customs prevailed. The imagination easily depicts dire tragedies and b.l.o.o.d.y conflicts which must have drenched their broad avenues with blood. Such has been the history of the world since the beginning of time.