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The most erudite antiquarian finds no coherent or reliable history in such crumbling monuments; generalities only can be deduced from them, however suggestive and interesting they may prove. Neither the ancient nor the modern Singhalese seem to have had any distinctive order of architecture, though the variety which they adopted was infinite.
Nor need we do more than refer to the Singhalese, "derived from the previous labours of Dr. Carey" by Tolfrey, the Persian, Malayalam, and other versions made by others, but edited or carefully carried through the press by Carey.
It is believed by the Singhalese that these are either individuals, who by accident have lost their former associates and become morose and savage from rage and solitude; or else that being naturally vicious they have become daring from the yielding habits of their milder companions, and eventually separated themselves from the rest of the herd which had refused to associate with them.
The service was simple and the music very good, but in the Te Deum, just as the verse "Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ," I caught sight of the bronze faces of these "punkah- wallahs," mostly bigoted Mussulmen, and was overwhelmed by the realization of the small progress which Christianity has made upon the earth in nineteen centuries. A Singhalese D.D. preached an able sermon.
This the natives call narrie-comboo; and they aver that this "Jackal's Horn" only grows on the head of the leader of the pack. Both the Singhalese and the Tamils regard it as a talisman, and believe that its fortunate possessor can command by its instrumentality the realisation of every wish, and that if stolen or lost by him, it will invariably return of its own accord.
The mammalia, birds, and reptiles received their first scientific description in an able work published in 1852 by Dr. Kelaart of the army medical staff , which is by far the most valuable that has yet appeared on the Singhalese fauna. Co-operating with him, Mr. Layard has supplied a fund of information especially in ornithology and conchology.
Governor's House. Great Resort of Pilgrims. Interior of the Temple. The Humbug of Relics. Priests of the Yellow Robe. A Sacred Bo-Tree. Diabolical Services in the Ancient Temple. Regular Heathen Powwow. Singhalese Music. Emulating Midnight Tomcats. Chronic Beggary. The Old Parisian Woman with Wooden Legs. A Buddhist Rock-Temple.
Mitford, of the Ceylon Civil Service, to whom I am indebted for many valuable notes relative to the birds of the island, regards the identification of the Singhalese Devil-Bird as open to similar doubt: he says "The Devil-Bird is not an owl. I never heard it until I came to Kornegalle, where it haunts the rocky hill at the back of Government-house.
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.
This mass of rockweed, so called, seems to come from the Indian continent at the north, but the natives have a theory that it is the cast-off growth of submerged islands, loosened from its native soil by the chafing of the restless sea after the raging of a severe storm. So the Singhalese have their "Atlantis;" fable, like history, repeats itself.
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