With the exception of the divers from the Malabar coast, who plunge head foremost from a spring-board, the men go into the water in an upright position, and are hurried in their journey to the bottom by a stone weighing from forty to fifty pounds. Each diver's attendant has charge of two ropes slung over a railing above the side of the boat: one suspends the diving-stone, and the other a wide-mouthed basket of network. The nude diver, already in the sea, places the basket on the stone and inserts one foot in a loop attached to the stone. He draws a long breath, closes his nostrils with the fingers of one hand, raises his body as high as possible above water, to give force to his descent, and, loosening the rope supporting the weight, is carried quickly to the bottom. An Arab diver closes the nostrils with a tortoise-shell clip, and occasionally a diver is seen whose ears are stopped with oil-saturated cotton. The manduck hoists the weight from the bottom and adjusts it for the next descent. Meanwhile, the diver, working face downward, is filling the basket with oysters with speed. When the basket is filled or breath exhausted, the diver signals, and is drawn up as rapidly as possible by the rope attached to the basket, and a specially agile diver facilitates the ascent by climbing hand over hand on the line When a man has been in the water half an hour, and made perhaps seven or eight descents, he clambers aboard the boat for a rest and a sunbath, and in a few minutes is taking part in the interminable chatter of the Orient.

A diver coming up with basket filled wears a face of benign contentment; but when the oysters are few and far between, as they are oftentimes, and the man has prolonged his stay below to the limit of his air supply, his head is out of water not many seconds before he is volubly denouncing the official control forcing him to work on a "paar" where little but sand exists, and his confrères on the boat hurl savage invective at any government functionary within earshot.

The powerful Eastern sun illumines the bottom sufficiently for a diver to plan his operations before going down, and nine days out of ten the overhead sun renders the sea sufficiently transparent to guide a boat's crew to promising anchorages. Pearling economists insist that dredging by machinery or the use of diving-suits can never compete with the simple and inexpensive method in vogue on the Manar banks. At Marichchikkaddi one hears frequent discussion of the time a diver may stay under water, and many improbable accounts of what has been done are told a visitor. An average Tamil or Moorman stays down not longer than forty-five seconds, while the broad-chested Arab thinks nothing of being under water from sixty to eighty seconds.

Depth has much to do with the time, and it is admitted that divers do not suffer unduly from the trying nature of their calling except when forced to work in unusually deep water. Seven or eight fathoms—about the average on the Ceylon banks—produces no injurious effect, but nine fathoms tell on all but men of sturdy build. Occasionally a declivity perhaps ten fathoms below the surface has to be fished, and this demands the service of picked men, divers possessing the highest vitality. Several divers collapse every season through toiling at unusual depths, and two or three pay the penalty of death. Most divers, however, live to as full a span as men pursuing other humble callings.

When a fishery is at its height, the scene on the banks is one of extreme animation, and a picture full of strangeness to New World eyes. Each craft is a floating hive of competitive noise and activity, and the center of a cordon of disappearing and reappearing seal-like heads, with baskets splashing in the water or being hauled by excited hands. In the distance floats the majestic barque Rengasamy Puravey, an old-timer, with stately spars, a quarter-deck, and painted port-holes that might cause a landsman to believe her a war-ship. For half the year the barque is the home of the government's marine biologist, and his office and laboratory, wherein scientific investigation and experimentation are in constant progress, are in houses built on the quarter-deck. Small steamers, having an official cut, move here and there among the fishing boats, doing patrol duty and carrying instructions when necessary from the Rengasamy Puravey.

"Would you like to go down in a diving-costume from a boat alongside the barque?" asks the biologist; "it's perfectly safe, and I have a dress that will fit you. Frequently I go to the bottom to study the curious growths there, and last season the colonial secretary did the thing two or three times."

With a readiness of speech rivaling gunfire in promptness I nipped in the bud the preparations for carrying out the proffered courtesy, explaining that I was glad to accept a vicarious description of things at the ocean's bottom.

The dingy fleet blossoms into a cloud of canvas, with every boat headed for Marichchikkaddi, the instant the "cease work" gun is fired. The scene suggests a regatta on a gigantic scale, and from a distance the leaning lug and lateen sails of the East give the idea of craft traveling at terrific speed. It is a regatta, a free-for-all, devil-take-the-hindmost affair. The prizes are choice berths on the beach as near as possible to the kottu, and the coolies who must carry the sacks of oysters see to it that the "tindal" and his sailors make no retarding error.

The camp had been peaceful and somnolent while the boats were out; but the word that the fleet was coming in had roused every laborer, every petty dealer, speculator, and harpy to nervous activity. Everybody goes to the sea-front to witness the beaching of the boats and to watch the unloading. An hour probably elapses between the coming of the leader of the fleet and the arrival of the slowest boat. During this period the important functionary is the beach-master, who shouts his commands to boats seeking to crowd into positions not rightly theirs. When a boat is securely drawn upon the strand, there is no waste of time in getting the cargo started for the government storehouse. Muscular porters, glistening in their perspiring nudeness, go in single file between boat and kottu like ants executing a transportation feat. In a very few minutes the oysters are being counted by nimble-handed coolies. Important gamblers in oysters, men with sharp eyes and speculative instincts, have only to note the number of sacks delivered from one or two boats—and secure a hint from an obliging diver as to whether the bivalves are "thin" or "thick"—to arrive at a safe hypothesis of what the day's take has been, and also whether the oysters promise to be fairly pearliferous. The opinions of two or three of these experts make a basis for starting the prices at the auction in the evening, and these "sharps" are seldom wrong in their estimate of what would be a safe offer for a thousand chances in the great lottery of Asia.

The count in the kottu is soon completed, and each boat's catch is divided into three piles, when an official selects two for the government, and the third is so expeditiously removed that a quarter of an hour later the share of the divers is being huckstered throughout the camp to small speculators.

Upon each craft throughout the day has been a native watchman of supposed honesty, in the government's employ, whose duty has been to see that no oysters were surreptitiously opened on the banks or during the run home. Suspicion of the extraction of pearls on the part of any member of the crew leads to the police being informed, and an arrest follows. A favorite way of hiding pearls is to tie the gems in a rag attached to the anchor that is thrown overboard when the boat lands. Another is to fasten a packet to a piece of rigging adroitly run to the masthead, there to remain until opportunity permits the dishonest schemer to remove it unobserved.

On their way to their sleeping quarters it is interesting to observe divers stopping at boutiques and tea saloons for refreshments, paying their score with oysters, extremely acceptable to the shopkeeper itching to test his luck. In a small way, oysters pass current in the Cadjan City as the equivalent of coins. Probably the variations in value lead to fluctuations in exchange, but these are so keenly understood that the quotations are apparently adjusted automatically, like exchange between nations.

The sale is held in the building where the camp magistrate all the afternoon has been dispensing justice in breaches of Marichchikkaddi's morals—simple assaults, thieving, and other petty misdemeanors usual to police courts. Punctually at sunset the auction begins. If the universe offers a stranger gathering for which commerce is responsible, it would be difficult to give it location. The gentle government agent sits on the platform, and in front of the rostrum is the splendidly appareled chief mudiliyar, to interpret between auctioneer and buyers. The bidders-to-be number half a hundred, and their eager faces are directed toward the august official of the government, each probably praying secretly to his god that undue competition be not inspired to the extent of excluding bargains. In the throng are chetties. Moor merchants, and local hawkers, hoping to get a few thousand bivalves at a price assuring a profit when peddled through the coastwise villages.

"Do these men represent actual capital!" you ask the agent. "They do, indeed," is the reply, "and collectively they are backed by cash in hand and satisfactory credits in Ceylon banks of at least a hundred lakhs of rupees." Forced as you are to accept the statement, you inwardly confess that they don't look it, for $3,200,000 is a goodly credit anywhere.

In the fading light of day the agent announces that approximately two million oysters are to be sold, and he invites offers for them by the thousand—the highest bidder to take as many as he chooses, the quotation to be effective and apply to others until it is raised by some one fearing there will not be oysters enough to satisfy the demands of everybody. It is the principle of supply and demand reduced to simplicity. The competition to fix the price of the first lot consumes perhaps a minute. The initial bid was thirty rupees; this was elevated to thirty-two, and so on until thirty-six was the maximum that could be induced from the motley assemblage. With his pencil the agent taps the table, and the mudiliyar says something in Hindustani meaning "sold." The buyer was an Arab from Bombay, operating for a syndicate of rich Indians taking a flier in lottery tickets. In a manner almost, lordly he announces that he will take four hundred thousand oysters. Then a sale of two thousand follows at an advanced price to a nondescript said to have come all the way from Mecca; a towering Sikh from the Punjab secures twenty thousand at a reduced rate, and so on. In ten or twelve minutes the day's product is disposed of to greedy buyers for the sum of 62,134 good and lawful rupees. A clerk records names of buyers with expedition, glancing now and then at a document proving their credit, and in a few minutes issues the requisitions upon the kottu for the actual oysters that will be honored in the early morning.

The primitive process by which the pearls are extracted from the oysters is tedious, offensive to the senses, and of a character much too disagreeable to be associated with the jewel symbolizing purity. A few million oysters are shipped to southern India, and some go to Jaffna and Colombo; but the preponderating bulk is dealt with in the private kottus in the outskirts of the camp belonging to the men who crowd the auction room. To open fresh from the sea and scrutinize every part of the oyster would be too slow a method to be applied to the business of pearl-getting. The native who obtains a few dozen seeks shelter under the first mustard-tree, and with dull-edged knife, dissects each bivalve with a thoroughness permitting nothing to escape his eye.

The burning sun, bringing putrefaction and decay to the oyster, is the operator's agency for securing what pearls his purchase may contain. For a week or ten days the oysters are stacked in his private kottu, and the process of disintegration is facilitated by swarms of flies and millions of maggots. When the tropical sun can do no more, the contents of the shells—putrid, filthy, and overpoweringly odoriferous—are gathered in troughs and other receptacles to be put through a process of cleansing by washing with water frequently drawn away. The residue, carefully preserved, is picked over when dry by experts, working under the watchfulness of owner or his deputy—and in this manner the pearls of my lady's dainty necklace and the engagement ring are wrested from nature.

Sometimes an impatient speculator is seen with his coolies on the beach carefully washing vatfuls of "matter," perhaps employing a dugout canoe as a washing trough. Wherever the work is done the stench is almost overpowering, and the odors defy neutralization. The wonder is that some dread disease of the Orient does not make a clean sweep of the city's population. The medical officers claim that the malodorous fumes are not dangerous, and experience has taught these officials to locate the compounds, wherein millions of oysters are to decompose, in positions where the trade winds waft the smells seaward or inland, without greatly affecting the camp's health. The British official whose olfactory organ survives a season at the pearl camp deserves from his home government at least the honor of knighthood.

Interesting as Marichchikkaddi is to the person making a study of the conduct of unusual industries and the government of Eastern people, the medical officer looms important as the functionary shouldering a greater responsibility than any other officer of the camp. To draw forty thousand people from tropical lands, grouping them on a sand plain only a few hundred miles above the equator, is an undertaking pregnant with danger, when considered from the standpoint of hygiene. Strange to say, Marichchikkaddi's health is always satisfactory; but tons of disinfectants have to be used. Malarial fever is ever present, but is of a mild type. The outdoor dispensary does a rushing business, but only seventy-five cases were sufficiently serious last season to be sent to hospital, and only ten of these were fatal. The divers are prone to pneumonia and pleurisy, and these diseases carried off five. The deaths out of hospital totaled twenty-two.

In the hospital I saw a man with grizzled beard whose escape from death bordered upon the marvelous. His head had been jammed four days before between colliding boats, cracking his skull to the extent of letting the brain protrude. He was rushed to the hospital to die, but had no intention of passing to another world, the doctors learned. Sitting upright on his cot-bed, the poor fellow said to me with an earnestness almost compelling tears: "Help me to get out of this place, please. I want to be with my boat, for there is no better diver than I am, and I can earn a hundred rupees a day as easily as any man in Marichchikkaddi."

As an illustration of the white man's supremacy, in dealing with black and brown peoples, Marichchikkaddi probably has no equal. Here, in an isolated spot on the coast of Ceylon, hours from anywhere by sea, and shut off from the large towns of the island by jungle and forest wherein elephants, leopards, and other wild animals roam, twelve or fifteen Britishers rule, with an authority never challenged, more than forty thousand adventurous Asiatics—men whose vocation is largely based on their daring, and whose competing religions and castes possess the germ of fanaticism that might be roused to bloodshed. The white man's control is supported by the presence of two hundred policemen, it is true, but these are natives. The keynote of this exposition of a multitude ruled by a handful of Europeans is the absolute fairness of their control, of course. Were justice non-existent, it would be inviting disaster for the white official to apprehend a wrong-doer, place him on trial, and personally administer with lash or birch the corporal punishment to be witnessed any morning in front of the camp lockup.

And what might happen if the divers, through their ringleaders, objected to surrendering to the Ceylon government the demanded "rake-off" of two thirds the oysters rescued from the sea by their efforts, in the event of these courageous fellows being assured that all the law in the world on the subject says that all the sea and all therein contained, beyond the distance of three nautical miles from shore, belongs to the universe! But the Manar diver knows naught of the three-mile law, presumably.

Does the fishery pay? Tremendously, so far as facts upon which to base an answer are obtainable. The government treasury is sometimes enormously expanded as a result of the enterprise. In 1905, the most prosperous of all Manar fisheries, the government sold its fifty million oysters for two and one half million rupees, and at least $600,000 of this was profit. Years ago, it is true, there were several fisheries producing for the treasury nothing but deficits. Nobody ever knows what reward visits the purchasers of oysters, for it is their habit to spread the report of non-success and disappointment. But the buyers and speculators come each year in larger numbers, with augmented credits, and they pay in competition with their kind a larger price for the oysters. The conclusion is, therefore, that they find the business profitable.

Even rumors of luck and profit would bring more speculators and rising prices at the auction sales, manifestly. Reports of fortunate strikes at Marichchikkaddi may more frequently be heard in India than in Ceylon, let it be said; and it is the gilded grandees of Hind—princes, maharajahs and rajahs—rather than the queens of Western society, who become possessors of the trove of Manar.

No Colombo merchant or magnate, or man or woman of the official set, is superior to tempting fortune by buying a few thousand oysters freshly landed from Marichchikkaddi. And the interminable question of caste, banning many things to Cingalese and Tamil, inhibits not the right to gamble upon the contents of a sackful of bivalves. If the fishery be successful, all Ceylon teems with stories of lucky finds, and habitations ranging from the roadside hut to the aristocratic bungalow in the Cinnamon Gardens are pointed to as having been gained by a productive deal in oysters. A favorite tale is that of the poor horse-tender, who, buying a few cents' worth of oysters, found the record pearl of the year; another is of the 'rickshawman suspected of having money in the bank as a result of a lucky find on the seafront of Colombo of three or four oysters dropped from a discharging boat—in a shaded alley between buildings he forced the bivalves to disgorge a pearl worth hundreds of pounds sterling. Most stories of this character are as untrue as the reports of soubrettes and telephone boys winning fortunes in Wall Street.

Did I try my luck? Of course I did. Who could resist the temptation? I purchased two great sackfuls of oysters, a thousand in number, which were brought off to the government tug Active by salaaming peons from the government agent's office. At five o'clock the tug was ready to start Colomboward the instant the "despatches" I was to deliver came on board. At last the precious package, with a parade of red tape and impressive wax seals, was handed over the side. It may have contained something as priceless as a last year's directory; I never knew. It was my deep-seated suspicion, however, that the packet was somebody's excuse for letting the public treasury expend a few hundred rupees in carrying one in private life back to Colombo to catch his steamer for China the next evening.

Confident was I that the bags on the stern grating that had been freshly soused with seawater as the Active steamed away from Marichchikkaddi contained a wealth of pearls. In the cool of the early morning I would subsidize the eight native sailors, getting them to open the shelled treasures, while I garnered the pearls. With this thought uppermost, I turned in on a cushionless bench to snatch a few hours' sleep. But slumber was out of the question; my brain was planning what might be done with the pearls I was soon to possess. Yes, there surely would be plenty for a pearl-studded tiara for the loved one awaiting me; and any superfluity might be made into ropes and collars for admiring relatives at home. Cousin Jessie had always coveted a necklace of pearls with a diamond clasp. The dainty baubles were in those sacks; there was no question about that. Yes, my luck at pearl-getting would compensate for missing Sir Thomas Lipton's dinner in Colombo. Sleep always comes in time, and at last I was dreaming of the cargo of priceless gems with me on the boat.

How extremely uncomfortable the bench was! What was that! I was not asleep, but very wide-awake—and such pains! In an instant I was rolling on the deck and shrieking from the terribleness of my suffering. Could it be cholera, the plague, or simply appendicitis with which I was stricken? The sailors held me down, but not a soul on board knew a word of English. I was positive that my end had come, and the thought of expiring away from friends and with a pocketful of prepaid around-the-world tickets was not agreeable. In an hour the pain was excruciating, and it continued for ten long hours with varying severity. Morning came, and the Indian skipper was plying his furnace with lubricating oil and turpentine—with anything that would help him get me to Colombo and medical skill. At last, eighteen hours out from Marichchikkaddi, the Active was in the harbor and I was being carried to the Grand Oriental Hotel.

"What about the two bags of oysters, the captain wishes to know!" the hotel interpreter asked.

"Oh, give them to the men," was the answer; "I have ceased to care for pearl-studded tiaras and collars. I'm glad to get away alive from the decaying millions of oysters at the fishery. Even God's free air there is poisoned by them. What I want most is a doctor."

CHAPTER IV
UPWARD TO THE SHRINE OF BUDDHA

From Colombo it is but seventy-five miles to Ceylon's ancient capital, and the journey thither is picturesque almost beyond description. For fifty miles the railway leads through the rich vegetation of the lowlands, with groves of cocoanut palms seemingly as boundless as the sea. In a suburb of Colombo the sacred Kelani River is crossed, at a point not remote from the Buddhist temple claimed to be contemporary with Gautama himself. The valley of the Kelani is vivid with rice-fields of green. The line then pushes its way through a bewildering medley of tropical vegetation—there are miles of cashew and breadfruit trees, of frangipani and jaks, and more than once a stately talipot-palm is discerned in full blossom—for half a century the tree has stored its vitality for this one effort; and the burst of splendor spent, its career on earth is ended. For twenty-five miles the train zigzags up hills, running now and then on the edge of a shelf from whence the traveler looks down hundreds of feet sheer upon foam-crested rapids. The journey from Colombo to Kandy affords one of the memorable experiences of Ceylon.

England has held the interior region of the island, controlled for centuries by the Kandyan kings, for but ninety odd years, and it is curious to observe wings of palaces at Kandy, where a semi-barbaric rule long held sway, employed now as British administrative offices. Little antiquity is discernible in the old hill capital, due to former rival interests of the Portuguese and Dutch. When one nation had control of the picturesque town, it was customary to efface or demolish everything that the other had done.

Kandy is the city of Buddha's tooth, and as such is the object of unbounded reverence with more than four hundred million inhabitants of the earth. Oudh, where Gautama Buddha died, lacks the sacred importance of Kandy; and the sepulcher at Jerusalem means no more to Christians, nor Mecca and Medina to followers of Mahomet.

Kandy was but a mountain village when the holy molar was brought here in the sixteenth century for safe-keeping. The small temple wherein it was deposited was beautified and enlarged, and finally the priesthood made the place their principal seat, and the Kandyan kings later made the city their stronghold and capital of the country.

Thousands of pilgrims come yearly to offer to the Temple of the Tooth their gifts of gold and silver ornaments, coins, jewels, vestments for the priests, even fruits and flowers—and these devotees have traveled from every hamlet of Ceylon and from every land where Buddha has believers—from Nepaul, the Malay Peninsula, China, Japan, even from Siberia and Swedish Lapland. The kings of Burmah and Siam, in compliance with the wish of their subjects, send annual contributions toward the support of the temple enshrining the tooth; and Buddhist priests in far-away Japan correspond with the hierarchy of the temple of Kandy. No other tooth has the drawing power of this one, certainly.

Strange to say. Buddhism has been cast out from India, where it originated, by the Hindu faith, which it was meant to reform. In India's enormous population scarce seven millions to-day worship at Buddha's shrine. Christianity, as well, is a stranger to the land where it was born. It appears the irony of fate that these great religions, glorious in principle, have abiding places without number, save in the countries where they originated. But such is the fact.

Few scholars can study the tenets of Buddhism without the conviction that it is a religion of striking merit—that is, as form and dogma are described by writers and commentators; but as practised by races not far removed from pagan illiteracy, with whom idolatry and superstition are inherent, it may no longer be the perfection of doctrine that was espoused by Prince Gautama.

Sir Edwin Arnold, who thoroughly knew most Eastern religions, admired enthusiastically the precepts of Buddha, and no one can read his writings without experiencing some regard for the Buddhism of literature. In "The Light of Asia" the five commandments of the great religion of the Orient are thus poetically recited:

Whether present-day Buddhism is the exact religion taught by the princely priest, and gracefully described by the English poet, matters little—its fountainhead is Kandy, and temple and dependencies of the sacred bone form the Vatican of the faith. This miraculous tooth, alleged to be the left eye-tooth of Gautama Buddha, and taken from the ashes of his funeral pyre twenty-five hundred years ago, has played a mighty part in Eastern intrigue, and wars between nations have been fought over it. For centuries it was the priceless marriage dower going with certain favored princesses of royal blood. It was brought from India to Ceylon in the fourth century after Christ. The Malabars secured it by conquest more than once, the Portuguese had it for a time at Goa, and for safety it was brought to Kandy in the sixteenth century, and it has there since been cared for with scrupulous fidelity.

A relic supported by so much history should at least be genuine—the history may be all right, but the tooth is a shambling hoax, at best a crude proxy for the molar of Gautama. Intelligent priests of Buddhism must know this, but the millions of common people finding solace in the faith have never heard the truth—and wouldn't believe it if they did. No more amazing display of faith over a reputed sacred relic is known than is associated with this bogus tooth of Kandy.

Reference to any library of unimpeachable works on the world's religions proves conclusively that the actual tooth was burned by the Catholic archbishop of Goa in 1560, in the presence of the viceroy of India and his suite—this is authentic history. Six years after the event at Goa a spurious tooth had to be provided to effect an international marriage long under contract, and the molar of a wild boar or of an ape was used. This tooth eventually was brought to the town nestling in the hills of Ceylon, and surrounding it grew the capital of the proud kingdom of the Kandyans. In the year of Waterloo, the British overthrew the reigning sovereign, and the bogus tooth and its temple have since had the protection of English rule.

The dimensions of the tooth are fatal to its pretended genuineness, for it is a discolored ivory two inches in length and one in diameter. No human mouth ever gave shelter to such a tooth. To view it would be a test of credulity too trying even for fanaticism to stand. The hoax, consequently, is concealed from sight. On important occasions it is displayed—at a distance. When the Duke and Duchess of York visited Kandy the high priests of the temple exhibited the tooth; and on occasions it is supposed to be carried in processions through the streets on the back of an elephant—but deception and trickery in connection with the tooth come easy.

The enshrined humbug reposes on a massive silver table, encrusted with gems and festooned with jeweled chains. The chamber in which it is kept in the temple is stiflingly hot, with atmosphere heavy from the perfume of flowers. Within six or eight bell-shaped metal covers the tooth is held by a standard as if emerging from the petals of a lotus flower of gold. Visitors to the museum at Colombo may see a replica of the relic and its setting: it is a tawdry, unimpressive object.

Glance where you will in Kandy, drive in any direction, penetrate any avenue or footpath, and priestly disciples of Buddha, of every age from the novice to the patriarch of exalted rank, accost the vision. Pilgrims appear to be constantly arriving. They are present from Jaffna in the north, from Galle in the south, from Nuara Eliya in the mountains, from everywhere—some come on foot, some by curious carts drawn by buffaloes or bullocks, some by railroad train. All are unshod, and the head of each is bare and shaven. Each wears the robe of eternal yellow, with an arm and shoulder bare, and the sunshade and palm fan have been the adjuncts of the brotherhood since Gautama left his royal parents' house to teach the word of Buddha.

Celibacy is the rule of the priesthood. Nothing can be less obtrusive than the demeanor of the brethren. Visitors to their temples are welcomed, and courteous replies are always made to inquiries.

Cremation is general in the priesthood, but apparently optional with others of the faith. When a dignitary of the priesthood passes away his confrères assemble from far and near at the funeral pyre to do him honor. The incineration usually takes place in a palm grove. The corpse is surrounded with dried wood, made additionally inflammable with oils. The rites of the pyre include nothing of a sensational character; the assemblage chants for a time, then a priest of high rank applies the torch, and in an hour nothing remains but a mound of embers and ashes. A cremation may be readily witnessed at Kandy or Colombo, or other place possessing a considerable population.

The peoples of low caste of the East are too numerous to be catalogued. India teems with them, of course, and the paradise island of Ceylon has a considerable percentage of human beings denied by their betters of almost every privilege save breathing the free air of heaven. The lowlands and coastal regions have been so commercialized that human pariahs are there almost overlooked—but they are at every turning of the road in every hamlet, everywhere. Kandy, once royal city, knows the abhorred low caste to-day as it did five hundred years ago, for in plain view of the capital in the hills there are settlements of men and women still excluded from communion with the world by reason of a royal curse pronounced centuries ago—and it is a condition worse than death itself.

Representatives of the Rodiya caste may be seen any day by pedestrians in the city's outskirts. There are not many of them, fortunately—perhaps a thousand all told. Tradition has it that hundreds of years ago a vengeful monarch condemned their race to never-ending degradation for having supplied the royal table with human flesh instead of venison. Custom forces these poor mortals to ford or swim a stream, instead of using a ferry; and forbids their drawing water at public wells. They must not live in houses like other people, but in hovels constructed usually by leaning a hurdle against a rock, and their men and women must never clothe their bodies above the waist. Until recent years courts of justice have been closed to them, and if overtaken on their travels by darkness they must find shelter in caves or abandoned hovels. They recognize their degradation by falling on their knees when addressing even toilers on the highway, and shout a warning on the approach of a traveler, that he may halt long enough for them to get off the road to secure his passing without possibility of defilement.

These groveling worms of the earth are nominally Buddhists, but are forbidden to enter a temple. Hence they pray "standing afar off." Demon worship is accredited to them. Their headman can officiate only when he has obtained the sanction of the common jailor of the district. Even to ask alms they must not enter a fenced property, and it is said at Kandy that water over which their shadows have fallen is held to be so defiled that other natives will not use it until purified by the sun's rays. And thus it is; their race is penalized in every manner, and the ban goes unchallenged by the miserable beings.

Their denial by mankind of ordinary fellowship has driven them to filthy and beastly habits. They devour the flesh of monkeys and tortoises, even carrion, it is claimed; and of late years they haunt feasts and ceremonials hoping to obtain fragments of food thrown from the tables of their betters. Now and then they are paid something for watching fields, and for burying carcasses of dead cattle. It is not known that they are thieves, but they are shunned as if they were. In emergencies, when there is a scarcity of labor, they are induced to work on tea estates, or at road mending; but the habits of vagabondage are too rooted to allow their remaining long in useful employment.

Superior in every way to their men, the Rodiya women are the most beautiful in all Ceylon. Their scantiness of raiment, it is pleaded in their behalf, is due in no sense to immodesty. Rodiya girls wander the country as dancers and jugglers, and their erect figures, elastic step, and regalness of carriage, would be envied by the proudest woman promenading Vanity Fair; some of them have faces so perfect in a classic way that a sculptor or painter might make himself famous by reproducing them.

Believe not that these miserable people represent the lowest grade of degradation in Lanka's isle, for there are two outcast races so far beneath them in the social scale as to be avoided by Rodiyas as if they reeked with a pestilential disease. These castes are hopelessly beyond the pale.

British rule in Asia recognizes no caste distinctions, but it has been a humane work of the wives of several English governors of Ceylon to seek to improve the position of the women of the Rodiya caste, especially of the young girls. Some benefit is claimed as a result of the efforts of the English women—but the majesty and power of Great Britain are puny institutions compared with the force of caste among native races. To keep down the Rodiya population a certain Kandyan king, it is stated on good authority, used to have a goodly number of them shot each year.

CHAPTER V
IN CEYLON'S HILL COUNTRY

When good Kandyans discourse in flowery vein, they say Kandy is only forty miles from heaven. Visitors who have fallen under the charm of the place are more likely to wonder at their moderation than question their ability to measure celestial distances. If Gautama Buddha's "eternal rest" were to be had on earth, Kandy would surely be the reward of Nirvana promised those who have acquired merit.

The beauty of Kandy is based upon naturalness; it is not grand like Taormina in Sicily, nor produced by nature and art in combination like Monte Carlo. Everything connected with the spot is fascinating, even the jungle that by day harbors the jackals which sometimes make night hideous to sojourners. Everybody appears happy; even elephants hauling timber in the suburbs toil cheerfully.

This inland province that formed the kingdom of Kandy preserved its integrity throughout the Portuguese and Dutch invasions of the island; and the English were in possession of the coast section full nineteen years before the Kandyan monarchy succumbed to their power.

This beautiful city was a different place under the native kings. They loved grandeur, apparently, but it was the grandeur of selfish surroundings and luxury. The lake now the center of the city was constructed by the last king, it is true; but its shore witnessed atrocities never surpassed in savage excess. Near the spot where stands a monastery of yellow robed monks of Buddha, the last king assembled his people in 1814 to witness the punishment of the innocent wife and children of a fleeing official accused of treason. By the blow of a sword the head of each child was severed from its body in the mother's presence, even that of the babe wrenched from her breast. The heads were placed in a mortar, and the woman forced under threat of disgraceful torture to pound them with a huge pestle.

When news of this reached the coast the English determined to intervene in the interests of humanity. While the horror was yet fresh in the public mind, a party of native merchants of Colombo came to Kandy to trade. The fiendish king ordered them seized and horribly mutilated. When, a few weeks later, the survivors returned to the sea-coast deprived of ears, noses and hands—with the severed members tied to their necks—the English decided to act immediately. Three months later Kandy was in their possession, and the king an exile in southern India.

From that time, with the exception of a few years when the hereditary Kandyan chiefs were troublesome through finding their privileges circumscribed, the progress of Ceylon as a whole has been remarkable. Perhaps the finest example of benefits coming with England's colonial rule is this "Eden of the Eastern Wave." Slavery and forced labor on public works have been abolished, fine roads constructed everywhere, and adequate educational facilities placed within easy reach.

A visitor perceives no squalor, few beggars, and apparently no genuine poverty. All these advantages have been secured practically without taxing the natives in any manner. Uniform contentment, consequently, is everywhere visible. The naked babies, looking like india-rubber dolls, have apparently never learned to cry.

Oddly enough, the English made Kandy the Saint Helena of Arabi Pasha's exile, until the broken and aged man was permitted a few years since to return to his beloved Egypt.

Itself beautiful with poinsettia, bougainvillea, crotons, hibiscus and palms, a botanical garden in Kandy would seem to have no proper place. But the city possesses one that is almost unique among tropical gardens. It is in the suburb of Peradeniya, four miles out, and it is embraced on three sides by Ceylon's principal stream, the Mahavaliganga. For eighty years the Ceylon government has treated the Peradeniya garden and its associated experimental stations as an investment—and it has paid well, for through its agency the cultivation of cinchona, cacao, rubber and other economic crops has been introduced to the people. Throughout Asia the Peradeniya garden is famous. Whether the claim that it is the finest in the world be correct would require an expert to determine. The botanical garden at Demerara may be as good, if not larger and better.

A layman visiting Peradeniya returns to Kandy in a state of bewilderment. He has seen so many attractive and strange manifestations of nature that lucid description is beyond his power. He is aware, nevertheless, that he has viewed nearly every tree, shrub, plant and vine known to tropical and subtropical climes; shrubs that produce every spice, perfume and flavoring he ever heard of, or that contribute to medicine, as well.

At Peradeniya the palm family has nearly a hundred representatives, including the areca, palmyra, talipot, royal, fan, traveler's, date and cocoanut. The forty or more varieties of crotons include the curious corkscrew of the West Indies, and range extravagantly in colors and markings. Huge Assam rubber-trees have exposed roots suggesting a tangle of octopi. A tree noticeable for its perfect foliage is the breadfruit; and there are sensitive plants that shrink from intimate attention, and water-plants whose roots need not come into contact with the earth.

Here and there are kola trees, cardamom bushes, aloe plants from which sisal is drawn, camphor and cinnamon shrubs, and probably every species of the parasitical family, depending like many human beings upon stronger relatives or neighbors for support. The orchid enclosure would arouse any collector's covetousness. There are foliage plants producing leaves counterfeiting elephant ears, and others that look like full spread peacock tails. A small leaf which the official guide of the gardens is obviously partial to is deep green when held to the light, purple when slightly turned, and deep red if looked at from another angle. The visitor moves swiftly into the sunlight when told that he is standing in the shade of the deadly upas.

A traveler approaching the island of Ceylon hears constantly of the wonders of Peradeniya; and some statements in praise of the garden are taken usually with reserve, especially that asserting there are trees there which develop so rapidly that the spectator can actually see them grow. This seems incredible, but there is ample basis for the statement. After a rain the fronds of the giant bamboo frequently grow a foot in the course of a day. At the office of the director of the garden are records of many measurements proving that fronds have lengthened a half inch in an hour. A tree growing a half inch in sixty minutes is a Ceylon fact. The first time I went to Peradeniya, thousands of flying-foxes, suspended bat-like from the giant bamboos a hundred feet from the earth, were sleeping away the day, while soaring above the trees were hundreds of these queer objects, scolding like disturbed crows.