o known only in the tales of the tropics: the traveler's tree
with its fernlike leaves, the cannon-ball tree, the deadly upas, the
nourishing breadfruit, the clove, the cinnamon, the mace or nutmeg, the
vanilla, the guava, the cork, the almond, the mulberry, the mango, the
sandalwood! There were great screw-pines, lignum-vitae, mahogany,
mimosa, magnolia trees; and the tree-fern, the giant creeper, the
panama-hat plant, the Peruvian cactus, the papyrus, the pineapple, and a
great collection of orchids. Only the sunshine and the moisture of
Ceylon could produce such a result. A tree cared for from its first
sprouting, and favored by the elements, becomes a wonder of the world.
It shows what man may become under the tutelage of God.

Anurajahpura was our last place to visit. Far to the north of Colombo,
it is the most important extant specimen of the ruined cities of Ceylon.
Before the time of Christ it was the seat of a kingdom that embraced the
whole island. Buddhism, after a life-and-death struggle, captured it and
erected in it structures for worship, which for grandeur and beauty
rivaled those of Burma. Two pagodas, or dagobas, of solid brick, each of
them more than two hundred feet high, tower up before one as he enters
the town. These structures are covered with verdure, for grasses and
shrubs have eaten their way into the mortar on the sides, until the
dagobas resemble conical natural hills. It is said that the brick of a
single one would suffice to build a wall eight feet high and a foot
thick from Edinburgh to London. One of them is being restored, and fifty
men are at work upon it, tearing away the vegetation and building anew
the outside covering of brick. The dagoba itself is not a temple, for it
is solid and has no chamber within; but at its base is a structure,
infinitesimal in size as compared with the one that towers above it, and
in this structure there is a reclining statue of Buddha seventy feet
long. Buddha must have been a giant, for his footprints are four feet
long, and his tooth is as large as the tooth of an alligator, and
surprisingly like one.

The grounds in the neighborhood of these towering dagobas are strewn
with ruins. Sixteen hundred pillars of stone, seven feet high, remain
to show the vast foundations of an ancient Buddhist monastery. There is
also a temple excavated in the solid rock of the hillside, and adorned
with curious carvings of elephants. We made the acquaintance of its high