BURIED CITY.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18823, 11 March 1931, Page 7

BURIED CITY.

AS BIG AS LONDON. A living tree 2,200 years old and a dead city as broad as modern London both are typical of the spirit of the true Ceylon which has stepped down through stately centuries with the slow, swaying sureness of her own great elephants. When the world was young Ceylon was old. Her fascination filled pages in the earliest annals of Arabia and China, of medieval Greece and Italy and Portugal. By contrast the imaginative Australian visitor feels but newly hatched —a very raw and very inquisitive fledgling (says writer in the Melbourne “Argus.”) Yet Australia is so close to the “Pearl of India” that Australians step aboard a ship for an excursion to Colombo with the nonchalance that they feel upon a run to Manly by ferry or upon a bay trip to Queencliff. Without reverence, they chatter cheerily about a thousand strange sights and scenes. A few, however, prefer the astounding background of antiquity—not the vari-coloured personal history of the King of Kandy or the chequered experience of their foreign conquerors—but the vastness of buried cities and of giant aqueducts. Anuradhapura, the almost prehistoric capital, has been wrested in ruins from the jungle. Built six centuries before Christ, it was constructed on a scale equalled today only by London and New York. Fine buildings, costly palaces, impressive temples, and quaint pagodas—structures containing relics of Buddha or some Buddhist saint—flanked streets sixteen miles long. The Brazen Palace, so called from the glitter of its brazen tiles in the brilliant sun, was nine stories high, each story housing 100 apartments. Its wealth of jewels, ivory, gold and silver, was famed far overseas. Even to-day its 1,600 stone pillars mount unflinching guard like •the Roman sentinel at Pompeii. The Oldest Tree. In this picturesque reclamation stands the oldest living thing in the world, the sacred bo-tree, which tradition says sprang from a branch of the tree under which Buddha once rested. “Shrivelk# decrepit, age-eaten stem of a once mighty overspreading giant,” the bo-tree is carefully guarded, and its fallen leaves are most precious mementos for pilgrims. Near by is the celebrated Kanthalai Lake, which extends for miles like an inland sea, providing water for elephants, buffalo, deer, and other wild life. This lake is part of a vast irrigation system which goes back for 2,000 years. Magnificent stone dams were thrust across valleys to impound the rainfall, and stupendous canals were built to carry the water to the planted soil. The genius that devised and the man-power which created this network of “tanks” may be guessed from the fact that one dam is Bft high, 300 ft wide, and 11 miles long.

I Mihintale, the birthplace of Bud- ! dhism in Ceylon, is eight miles from | Anuradhapura. Apart from the interest of its sanctity there is a wonderful stone stairway of 200 granite slabs which mounts I,oooft to the summit, i Polonnaruwa, the second of the huge j “buried cities” of the island, was the seat of power of the Cingalese I kings for five centuries. Its ruins are imposing. It is less pretentious, however, than its greater rival.

Book lovers revel in the Oriental library at Kandy. There are priceless old books with pages made of palm leaves and covers studded with gems. I With a needle or a sharp point the ! chroniclers scratched their story on j the palm leaves. Then they brought 1 out the scratches boldly by the use of j charcoal and oil rubbed in gently. The J crime chronicles of old Ceylon are as ; bizarre and enthralling as the tales of Edgar Wallace. For instance, the rock Sigiriya is a natural stone fortj ress which towers 400 ft above encircling Jungle. On its flat top are I the remains of a unique fortification, within which a royal parricide endured almost indefinite siege. There is the , solitary Alagalla, the spear-point peak I from which offenders against the king | or the law were dropped 3,400 ft into the valley below. Cataracts issue from j its sides to-day as if the tears of • centuries were welling.