Grows pure and sinless ; either never more
Needing to find a body and a place,
Or so informing what fresh form it takes
In new existence, that the new toils prove
Lighter and lighter not to be at all,
Thus, * finishing the Path,’ free from Earth’s cheats ;
Until—greater than Kings', than Gods more glad !—
The aching craze to live ends, and life glides
Lifeless to nameless quiet, nameless joy,
Blessed Nirvana—sinless, stirless rest—
That change which never changes ! ”
From E d w i n A r n o l d ’s “ Light of Asia.”
Flower decoration enters very largely into all the rites
of the two older systems, Hinduism and Buddhism,
and idol worship has gradually crept into the latter
faith, which has lost much of its original purity.
In the northern districts of Ceylon the Malabars
follow the Hindu religion, and worship Seva.
Those who have studied the spread of civilization in
the early times of the worlds history must have
noticed the resemblance of many of Buddha’s precepts
with well-known apophthegms of his contemporary,
Solon, as—
“ In all things let reason he your guide ; ”
“ Diligently contemplate excellent things; ”
and many others. I t is a curious coincidence that
these two great men should have been born within a
few years of each other, although thousands of miles
a p a r t; the one an ascetic and philosopher, whose
teachings rapidly disseminated over the whole of the
E a s t; the other a lawgiver, exercising immense
influence over, what was then, the Western school.
At the invitation of a gentleman from India, staying
a t the same hotel, I joined him and his son in a
•delightful trip to the hills extending in a southerly
direction, visiting one or two of the largest coffee
plantations on the island, where we were most hospitably
received. Our road was almost continually
ascending, the best elevation for the cultivation of
coffee being apparently 3,000 to 4,000 feet, where the
ground is covered with a rich chocolate brown loam,
consisting of decomposed particles of rock from above,
blended with decayed vegetable matter of the forest.
The first plantation was commenced as recently as
1841, and since that many fortunes have been made
here by those who have had ample funds at their
■disposal. The only thing that spoils the appearance
of coffee estates in Ceylon is the number of black
scorched trunks which have been left standing after
the land had been cleared by the axe and by burning.
At Pusillawa we inspected two of the largest
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