approach to Paradise. A few days' stay
there sufficed to show us that the legend was partly justified.

The city is situated in a valley with stretches of mountains on either
side, a lake nestling in the centre of the place and in the midst of a
perfect wealth of trees. Nature seemed to challenge our admiration.

The afternoon drive to Peradeniya convinced us that the claim of one of
the greatest botanical gardens in the world was well founded, for here
we saw revelations in plants, shrubs, and trees, the new varieties of
palms seeming wonderful. A talipot palm was in blossom, towering high to
heaven, but we knew that its course was nearly ended, for when it
attains about half a century of vitality it droops and dies; this seems
a strange anomaly of Nature. Great groups of rubber trees (largely
exported from Ceylon) and immense groups of tall bamboo trees were also
in plenty.

Kandy, in the Eastern world, derives its greatest renown from being the
home of Buddha's tooth, and the Temple of the Tooth attracts great
crowds of pilgrims of the Buddhist faith from many lands. It is said to
have been brought here in the sixteenth century, and the small temple in
which it was then placed has been enlarged and made a shrine where
costly gifts are laid by devotees from China, Japan, the Malay
Peninsula, Siam, and other remote points. Buddhism claims the larger
portion of Ceylon's subjects, having in comparison with Hinduism a small
following in India, where it originated. The tooth is said to be the
left eye-tooth of Prince Siddhartha, taken from his ashes twenty-five
centuries ago, but it is believed that the original tooth was burned by
the Catholic Archbishop of Goa, Portugal, in 1650, and a spurious one
substituted. However, it is worshipped as the real one, and the morning
following our arrival, we attended the 9.30 service at the temple, where
a crowd was in attendance, seemingly enjoying the hideous music of the
tom-toms and instruments of a similar Oriental character. The tooth is
not shown except on rare occasions, but through a glass door we saw its
jewelled casket and the table on which it rests.

[Illustration: _General view of Kandy_]

There were many offerings before this relic and before other images of
Buddha which are to be found presiding over all temples. Much
superstition was evident, but the sacrifices and practices that are to
be seen in the Hindu temples are here wanting. It is a sad reflection,
howev