various places, and consequently more
dangerous. The road in one place lies directly
over a mass of almost perpendicular rock,
about fifty or sixty feet high ; to have climbed
which, without assistance, would have been
impossible. Steps have been cut in the rock
to facilitate the ascent, and chains, during the
time of pilgrimage, are suspended on either
side. These latter had of course been
removed, but we managed the ascent without
great difficulty or danger, by a diligent and
careful use of both hands and feet, as if
ascending a ship's ladder. The heavy articles
were dragged up by a rope let down from the
top by those who had first ascended, for that
purpose. This rope Poonchy wanted to have
tied round my waist, but I found no great
difficulty in ascending without it. At length
I stood at the foot of that extraordinary cone
which forms the summit of the mountain. It
resembles a huge sugar-loaf, about two
hundred feet high, with a fairy palace on the top.
Its sides are formed by masses of irregularly
projecting rock, interspersed by shrubs of a
European character. The air was delightfully
cool and refreshing ; the view around was
magnificent in the extreme, and right in front
of us rose this strangely-shaped mass of rock
and vegetation, on the highest point of which
the footstep is impressed ; and above that
rises the roof, which looks so picturesque from
a distance, supported on large wooden pillars,
fixed into the rock on the top, and further
kept in its position by massive chains stretching
from the four corners (like ropes from the
pole of a tent), and clamped into the rock on
the sides of the cone.

The road winds up the side of the cone like
a strung series of Zs, consisting of a small
pathway, formed partly by jutting rocks,
partly by incisions in its side. Its steepness,
and the form with which the wind sweeps
round this impediment, at a height of eight
thousand feet, render the ascent both difficult
and dangerous. The scrubby, European-
looking vegetation, on the sides of the pathway,
generally affords the traveller a hold in
places of more than ordinary difficulty, but
there are two rocks, the face of which must
be ascended without any such aid; here,
however, chains riveted into the rock above
are let down on either side to help him. In
many places the loss of one's hold, or the
slipping of a foot, would precipitate the traveller
into eternity. Even women, as I have said,
do encounter the dangers of the ascent from
motives of piety, and there is scarcely a
dangerous spot on the road, connected with which
is not some tale of the loss of human life,
particularly that of females, in endeavouring to
make their way to the summit. The year in
which our guide previously ascended, the
second before our expedition, two female
devotees were blown over the sides of the hill at
one of those frightful turnings in the road on
the cone, where a square foot of level rock is
the only impediment between the traveller
and destruction. On looking down into the
dreadful abyss beneath, at this point, I could
clearly discern a fragment of cloth that had
been caught by a dead projecting bough,
waving mournfully in the breeze.

At length we stepped forth upon the summit
of the far-famed Adam's Peak. Few can
imagine the pleasure with which I looked
round upon the amazing view spread out like a
gigantic panorama around me; a view from a
height of about eight thousand feet, and that
height a pinnacle, whence the prospect was
open on every side! The cold sharpness of
the air had a charm about it of a strange
character, after so many months of too sunny
sultriness. It was like a fine frosty morning
in England breaking upon the monotony of
tropical life. The very plants around, the
rhododendrons and firs, seemed more familiar
and dear to my European eyes than the
eternal palm and broad-leaved plants of the
plain. Everything was lovely, everything
new, and I had a capacity to enjoy it keenly,
after the fatigue and dangers we had undergone.

The summit is surrounded by a rude stone-
wall, about three feet high, which confines a
bordering of earth, forming an irregular walk
round the block of granite which rises in the
centre, in two irregular masses, on the highest
and largest of which is stamped the sacred
foot-impression, and over that rises the
Chinese-like roof, supported on massive
wooden pillars, and by the iron chains I have
already described. On the eastern side of the
path round the blocks of granite lying
between them and the wall, there is a greater
space than elsewhere; and here the priests
have erected a small wicker-work bungalow,
in which they reside during the time of
pilgrimage. The whole area of the summit may
be between one hundred and fifty and two
hundred square yards, so that there is room
enough for a considerable number of people,
notwithstanding the priest's small bungalow,
and the space occupied by the rock in the
centre. To clamber up this rock was the
work of a second, using the cavity in which
the pious Buddhists drop their offerings as a
step for that purpose, greatly to the horror
of Poonchy, as I perceived. I now stood on
the extreme summit; the Chinese-like roof
was directly over my head, and I was standing
in the very foot-impression itself.
Here, it is said, Buddha left his
footprint as a sign before quitting his
worshippers. By others it is said, here Adam
stood upon one leg for a thousand years as
penance, before quitting Ceylon, his paradise.
The print is about four feet long, by two
and a half in the broadest part, and evidently
consisted at first of two semicircular depressions
in the rock, the one two feet, and
the other about one foot long, at a convenient
distance from each other. Priestly ingenuity
or superstitious faith has converted the smaller
of these cavities into the impression of a heel,