d of verdure, and so rounded and worn by time that
it has acquired the form of a couchant elephant, from which it derives
its name of AEtagalla, the Rock of the Tusker.[1] But AEtagalla is only
the last eminence in a range of similarly-formed rocky mountains, which
here terminate abruptly; and, which from the fantastic shapes into which
their gigantic outlines have been wrought by the action of the
atmosphere, are called by the names of the Tortoise Rock, the Eel Rock,
and the Rock of the Tusked Elephant. So impressed are the Singhalese by
the aspect of these stupendous masses that in ancient grants lands are
conveyed in perpetuity, or "so long as the sun and the moon, so long as
AEtagalla and Andagalla shall endure."[2]

[Footnote 1: Another enormous mass of gneiss is called the
Kuruminiagalla, or the Beetle-rock, from its resemblance in shape to the
back of that insect, and hence is said to have been derived the name of
the town, _Kuruna-galle_ or Kornegalle.]

[Footnote 2: FORBES quotes a Tamil conveyance of land, the purchaser of
which is to "possess and enjoy it as long as the sun and the moon, the
earth and its vegetables, the mountains and the River Cauvery
exist."--_Oriental Memoirs_, vol. ii. chap. ii. It will not fail to be
observed, that the same figure was employed in Hebrew literature as a
type of duration--" They shall fear thee, _so long as the sun and moon
endure_; throughout all generations."--Psalm lxxii. 5, 17.]

Kornegalle is the resort of Buddhists from the remotest parts of the
island, who come to visit an ancient temple on the summit of the great
rock, to which access is had from the valley below by means of steep
paths and steps hewn out of the solid stone. Here the chief object of
veneration is a copy of the sacred footstep hollowed in the granite,
similar to that which confers sanctity on Adam's Peak, the towering apex
of which, about forty miles distant, the pilgrims can discern from
AEtagalla.

At times the heat at Kornegalle is intense, in consequence of the
perpetual glow diffused from these granite cliffs. The warmth they
acquire during the blaze of noon becomes almost intolerable towards
evening, and the sultry night is too short to permit them to cool
between the setting and the rising of the sun. The district is also
liable to occasional droughts when the watercourses fail, and the tanks
are dried up. One of these calamities occurred about the period of my
visit, and such was the su