It was a
great relief to get outside of the moss-grown edifice, far away from
the horrible din and the terribly offensive smell, which permeated not
only the place, but one's clothing for hours afterwards.

There are seven other temples and chapels at Kandy, belonging to
different denominations, besides two Buddhist ecclesiastical colleges.
The Malwatta temple is worth a visit, it being the most important
Buddhist monastery, where all the priests of the order in Ceylon, upon
assuming the yellow robe which is their badge of office, come to
formally utter their solemn vows. These bronzed priests, in
saffron-colored, toga-like robes, followed by an attendant carrying a
yellow silk umbrella, are rather striking figures in the thoroughfares
of this inland town. In the time of the late king, no one but his
imperial majesty and the priesthood were permitted to carry an
umbrella, but men with no other covering from the sun but a cloth
wound about the hips carry this article in our day, and derive much
comfort from the shade it affords.

The less said about what these natives call music the better. Indeed,
it would seem as though oriental music was invented only to torment
European ears. Ivory horns, tom-toms, fifes, and the rudest sort of
bass drums are the instruments most in use with the Singhalese, a few
Chinese stringed contrivances being occasionally added, simply
increasing the horror. The sounds of the latter instruments resemble
most the cries of a pugnacious conclave of tomcats on the rampage at
midnight. The query forcibly suggests itself in this connection, as to
whether the instrumental music of western civilized people can
possibly sound to these orientals so uncouth and so hideous as do
their own performances to us.

In the porch of the Kandy temple and its immediate vicinity, just as
one sees in and about the Roman Catholic churches of Europe, are
groups of wretched-looking beggars, at all hours, most of whom, after
the conventional style prevailing elsewhere, exhibit some physical
deformity which is their stock in trade. Some of these endeavor to
excite sympathy by thrusting self-inflicted wounds before the
stranger's eyes,--wounds which are kept in a chronic condition of
soreness by various irritating processes adopted for this purpose. One
cannot but be impressed as much through the picturesqueness of the
scene presented by the half-naked, ragged, cadaverous throng as by the
sad moral which these poor crea