the alchemy of the rising sun transmuting the myriad feathery
fronds into fountains of green fire. Only the creaking of a
bullock-waggon, or the thud of a falling cocoanut, breaks the hush of
the tropical daybreak, when the leaves only whisper in their dreams,
and the vernal earth, fresh as from her Creator's hand, renews her
strength for the heat and burden of the coming day. The colossal pile,
consisting of temple, monastery, and innumerable shrines, amid
fountains and fish-ponds, bridges and balconies, courts and terraces,
gleams whitely against the green gloom of the vast palm-forest on
either side, sloping sharply to the shimmering sea. The usual appalling
images of vermilion and gold guard every sculptured gateway, and
surmount the painted shrines encircled by parterres of votive flowers,
for the philosophic Buddhism of Ceylon and Siam gathers the moss and
weeds of many an incongruous accretion in countless ages of pilgrimage
through the Eastern world. The transcendental mysticism which spun the
finest cobwebs of human thought, crystallises into concrete form when
interpreted in the terms of China, where dim reminiscences of early
Nature worship, and the terrors which upheld the authority of many
obsolete creeds, have been incorporated into the vague ideals of Prince
Gautama's prophetic soul. Altars, strewn with fragrant champak-flowers,
stand beneath lace-carved alcoves of black teakwood, on the broad
plateaux which form welcome resting-places beside each flight of steps
on the marble stairway, the gilded pinnacles and aerial spires of the
white temple sparkling against the sea of rich foliage. A knot of
Burmese worshippers, with rose-coloured scarves and turbans, throw
their infinitesimal coins on the palm-leaf mats of a red-roofed shrine,
and tell the wooden beads of the Buddhist rosary, chanting the
perpetual refrain of "_Pain_, _Sorrow_, _Unreality_," as a warning
against the temptations of _Maya_, the world of illusion. The brown
faces raised imploringly to the presiding deity, a leering demon with
green face and yellow body, inspire the hope that the grotesque monster
may prove his own unreality by vanishing from the hearts of his
devotees into the limbo of nightmares from which he has emerged, for
the philosophic quietism of Buddhist creed offers no disguise to the
horrors of a hell far surpassing the terrific literalism of Dante's
Inferno. Rippling conduits edge pillared courts and cloistered arcades,
resp