A Lovely View.

Ruin And Jungle.

Inner Temple Of The Sacred Tooth.

Temple Of The Sacred Tooth.

Pillars In The Palace Of The Kandian Kings.

A Buddhist Shrine, Ceylon.

In saying this, I would not be misunderstood. I yield to none in admiration for the self-sacrificing life and beautiful moral precepts of Gautama Buddha. I reverence, too, the marvelous power of a man whose gentle deeds and noble words still hold in one religion, after twenty-five hundred years, nearly a third of the human race. But admiration for the teachings of its founder cannot conceal the fact that between Buddha and the ordinary Buddhism of to-day there is a heaven-wide difference. Of this the Buddhistic Holy of Holies in Kandy is a proof; and, since this has for its conspicuous features the gross imposture of the "Sacred Tooth," a half-barbaric style of worship, and an environment of dirt and beggars, we realize how polluted has become the stream which issued from so pure a spring.

Asking For More.

A Wagon Of Colombo.

A Buddhist Altar.

It is a remarkable fact that, however powerful Buddhism may be in Ceylon, in India itself it holds at present a very unimportant place. Under the inspiration of its founder, twenty-five centuries ago, it was a grand revolt against the tyranny of Hinduism, and at first seemed likely to replace it. But Hinduism rose again, vanquished its youthful conqueror, and finally drove it out of India. It found indeed a stronghold in the island of Ceylon, where it is still the dominant faith. But India is practically held to-day by Hinduism and Mohammedanism, the Buddhists, Parsees, Jews, and Christians being insignificant in comparison. Thus, in 1891, there were in India, in round numbers, two hundred and seven million Hindus, fifty-seven million Mohammedans, and only seven million Buddhists. Strange to say, both Buddhism and Christianity are outcasts from the lands where they originated - the one from India, the other from Judea; and both are flourishing best in countries far beyond the seas - Christianity in Europe and America, Buddhism in Burma, China, and Japan.

The Procession Of The Sacred Tooth.

Kandy possesses what is, undoubtedly, so far as arboreal cultivation is concerned, the finest botanical garden in the world. Its floral display is somewhat limited; but its vast park of one hundred and fifty acres contains more rare and interesting trees than I have elsewhere seen. Everything here is admirably arranged. Intelligent English-speaking guides, appointed by the Government, accompany travelers through the park and thoroughly explain its treasures. Perhaps the loveliest of its large variety of palms is that which has the shape of a gigantic fan; but there are also here the Palmyra palms, sometimes a hundred feet in height, and cocoanut and sago-palms, and one that always calls forth a romantic interest, - the talipat-palm, which blooms but once after a preparation lasting from fifty to eighty years. Then, having gained the object of its whole existence, it gradually dies, - resembling thus some human hearts, which are so absolutely given to one grand achievement or supreme affection, that when that is attained there remains nothing more for them in life. Yet that one glorious climax - like the wonderful flores-cence of the fronded palm - makes them contented to have lived, and ready, then, to die. We looked with astonishment on the clumps of bamboo gr]owing here, each of whose stems is more than a hundred feet in height and nearly a foot in diameter. A man beside them seems a pigmy. A child might be concealed in one of their joints. Yet these were not bamboo groves, but merely separate clusters, eighty feet thick, resembling with their graceful, feathery tops gigantic ostrich-feathers. Nor is the rapidity with which the bamboo grows here less remarkable than the size which it attains. By actual measurement it has been shown to increase in the rainy season at the rate of half-an-inch an hour, or a foot a day.