from a feeling of unworthiness that was more acceptable, and so accounted to him, than the worship of the Pharisee. I hope that these "despised and rejected of men" may find similar favour when all shall get their deserts. Their humility here has eaten into their very souls. They kneel when speaking to any one not of their race, and make noises that warn others of their objectionable propinquity.

From Colombo to Kandy the road is all around the hills, out of which it is cut, and winds about some very alarming precipices—much like to that romantic Otira Gorge road that takes the traveller through the best scenery of New Zealand, from Hokitika to the Cass. It is a forty-mile journey, all uphill, however, and so leads to a cooler atmosphere. Some of the views are certainly fine, if the traveller is not too nervous, or troubled with vertigo, to admire them. Instead of looking at this or that in the valley that lies so far below, he prefers to turn his head and look at the lizard that runs on the wall of rock on the other side of him. The coffee plantations are begun hereabout, but are nothing to notice as yet. Rice cultivation seems to be most followed, and the irrigated fields that it requires lie about, like the squares of a chess-board in appearance, in the depths of the valleys around.

The difficulties of the journey are repaid, however, by the sight of Kandy. It is well worth coming to see, and coming a long way to see-all is so thoroughly eastern. White faces and European costumes are scarcely to be seen. It is a compact city, and a crowded one also. Men of every shade of brown down to black are seen about in all varieties of clothing-most of which are gay-coloured. The headdressings that I have mentioned are here seen varied by the occasional tall hat of the Parsee; and now and again a being wholly enveloped in yellow serge is pointed out as a Buddhist priest. The town is laid out admirably for the visitor. Its situation is prettily picturesque, on the edge of a lake overhung all around by hills. The streets are at right angles and of good width. From the easily accessible sides of the surrounding heights all the city can be taken in at a glance.

The European stores scarcely count in the large number of Cingalese “boutiques," or trading-stalls, that are squeezed together in the ever-crowded streets, the two leading ones of which appear to be those called Trincomalee and Colombo. Here I am shown the large house of one De Soyza, the millionaire of Ceylon, to whom belonged the cinnamon gardens that the road of Galle had passed through for miles. His father had begun the world in one of the small boutiques that I see around. He is said afterwards to have discovered the buried treasures of one of the former native kings, who had hidden the same from the incursions of Tamils or Portuguese. Such deposits were common in troublesome times of the past, and a De Soyza, similarly to a Monte Christo, may perhaps have lighted upon them. In this Arabian-Nights-looking town of Kandy, all that is romantic and improbable seems quite in place.

That large temple-the "Maligawa" before me-at the top of Colombo-street, was erected to hold the sacred tooth of Buddha. It is covered up there by seven jewelled covers, shaped like sugar-loaves. The key of each of these caskets is kept by the hands of a different priest. The “Dalada ”— such is its name-is only shown on certain occasions, and to such as princes or governors. I am allowed to see the outer of the jewelled covers, decorated with rubies, pearls, sapphires, diamonds, emeralds, gold, ivory, and silver, and feel a proper respect for a tooth so grandly guarded. I am unable to learn any particulars about it, except that it is the biggest tooth ever seen, or why it came to be so reverenced, but am told that the King of Siam had offered a million sterling for it. This tooth is to Kandy what Mahomet's tomb is to Meccathe fortunes of the place rest upon it. The original tooth was taken away with other plunder by the Portuguese. Its substitute is in fact no tooth at all, but a discoloured piece of ivory that at one time formed part of an elephant. I am wrong to speak in that way, perhaps, of religious relics. Every religion has some to show. It were well that they were all kept from sight as much as the holy tooth of Buddha.

Buddhist Temple.

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More believers might be thereby obtained. I have read that that which is seen is temporal, and therefore false, and that which is unseen is spiritual, and therefore true. This specially applies to all such relics.

The palace of the kings of Kandy that were adjoins this temple of the tooth. They were emperors, in fact, acting apart from the advice of Parliaments, and executing their decrees and a hundred or so of their subjects now and thenaccording to their whims. The descendants of these subjects I see in crowds beneath, as I look from the palace windows, and I think them much better off under the present Government than their forefathers were. In the grand audience-hall of this palace-a regal-looking place indeed-the English Governor of Ceylon had lately received a British prince. The palace fronts to a large artificially-made lake of some extent. Over its edge is built a palatial pavilion in which Haroun al Raschid might have sat with Scheherezade. It has now fallen to the common use of an Athenæum-a reading-room for papers and magazines. The tooth in the neighbouring temple might ache at the sight of what it now sees-with the memories of what it has seen.

In an adjoining temple to the palace I am shown curious writings in scroll fashion, beautifully written on the leaves of the talipat palm. Some of it is tastefully illuminated in fine colours. These treasures are preserved in handsomely-carved ivory covers, and put away in a dainty depository like the tables of the law in a synagogue.

Though the sacred relic cannot be shown to me, a kindly Buddhist who sees me looking over the illuminated scrolls, and who is probably one of their custodians, gives me, in good English, great information. He explains "The Three Caskets" into which the doctrines and teachings of Buddhism are divided. They were thrown into this form by the disciples of the Buddha after his death, when Buddhism was formulated and reduced to a system in which theology and metaphysics appear to be united. This wondrously popular faith, it is to be noticed, was not initiated by revelation nor verified by

miracles. It is solely founded on man's reason, of which it is the greatest existing effort. No sacrifices are made, nor any deity worshipped, by its followers, unless the creative power, the great first cause, may be so called. The figures of Buddha seen about are not for worship, but for remembrance, as we see crosses and crucifixes regarded elsewhere.

In these writings, "The Three Caskets," a code of morality exists similar to that of Christianity, which Buddhism preceded by some centuries. In the "Sins of the Body," the "Sins of Speech," and the "Sins of the Mind," are to be found condemned all that our Ten Commandments forbid. The transgressor pays the penalty for wrong-doing by transmigration after this life into that of degraded beings, or of suffering in one, many, or all of the hundred and thirty-six specified means of misery set forth in these caskets.

In "The Four Verities" is demonstrated the evils of existence and the great good of attaining Nirvana-the absorption of separate existence into the creative essence whence it emanated. "The Eight Means" to that great end are set forth as being right faith, judgment, language, purposes, practice, obedience, memories, and meditation. The simple life that the true Buddhist leads can be traced to the "Five Precepts," that forbid luxuries in meals, dress, and amusements, as also those of "luxurious beds" and taking bribes, which last prohibition I take to be the correct interpretation of that language which forbids "receiving money." It may be susceptible of other interpretation, but I leave it at that.

I am grateful to the intelligent and zealous official who thus spends time on my enlightenment. He sees probably that I am, in Tennysonian language, "an infant crying in the night, an infant crying for the light," and so patiently talks to me in a way that has with it the power of an apostle. As we talk, I look through the open window on the placid lake below and on the silent hills beyond, and think that the scene is appropriate to the matter of learning what one-third of the people of this world believe relative to the world to come.

He tells me in different words that "'tis not the whole of