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Updated: May 19, 2025
"She died, no doubt," said Sancho. "Of course," said Trifaldin; "they don't bury living people in Kandy, only the dead."
The best cinnamon gardens are nearest to the sea coast, and those so situated produce the most pungent bark. On the occasion of our visit, special notice was taken of a group of bamboos in the Kandy garden, the bright yellow stems being over a hundred feet in height, and each stem at the base measuring from eight to ten inches in diameter.
There is a tradition that the gaur, found in the extremity of the Indian peninsula, was at one period a native of the Kandyan Mountains; but as Knox speaks of one which in his time "was kept among the king's creatures" at Kandy , and his account of it tallies with that of the Bos Gaurus of Hindustan, it would appear even then to have been a rarity.
This is Buddha, of whom you heard in Kandy, and all over here, and in Burma, and in a less degree in India, you will find images of him set up to remind his followers of the precepts he left for them to follow. Our driver is dead asleep under a tree, but we manage to wake him and soon we are rattling along a tree-shaded road in the queer little cart to Ruanveli, the best known of all the dagobas.
The "diggings" of the kings of Kandy must have been conducted on a most extensive scale. Not only has the Vale of Rubies been regularly turned up for many acres, but all the numerous plains in the vicinity are full of pits, some of very large size and of a depth varying from three to seventeen feet.
To-day it is the region south of the ancient Kingdom of Kandy a kingdom no more which most invites the stranger, rendered beautiful by an endless succession of musical streams, waterfalls, mirror-like lakes, palm groves, and flowery labyrinths, the very realization of a tropical dream.
Kandy, the Maha-neura, or "great city," of the Singhalese, one of the ancient capitals of Ceylon, is beautifully situated in the bosom of the verdant hills in the central province of the island, just about half way between the east and west coasts, a little more than seventy miles north of Colombo. It became the capital of the island in 1592.
It was brought from India to Ceylon in the fourth century after Christ. The Malabars secured it by conquest more than once, the Portuguese had it for a time at Goa, and for safety it was brought to Kandy in the sixteenth century, and it has there since been cared for with scrupulous fidelity.
Accordingly, at Colombo I put up at the Galle Face Hotel, and the first man I met was Allan MacGregor, one of Lipton's tea estate managers, in Kandy and Newara Elya. MacGregor and I were old pals, having done much hunting and bridge playing in days gone by. I planned to spend a week with him and go after some leopards.
After lunch I went to rest, thoroughly tired out with the hard work of the last two days, whilst the gentlemen went into Kandy, to see Buddha's tooth and a Brahmin temple. Just before sunset we went to have a last look at those lovely Botanical Gardens. They were more beautiful than ever in the afternoon light, and I saw many things which had escaped my notice before.
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