The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1886-04-29
CeyIon,s Holy Mountain.

Far away in the mystic East there
rises, high TO the sun, q great natural
altar, at which, since the dawn OF ages,
man has, without ceasing, worshiped
until now. Over the dark-eyed, i'm
passive people of that strange, unal-
terable East ages flow and leave no
mark; hundreds of generations are
born and pass away, and no change Is
wrought among them. There is an
awfulness in their steady immobility.
Dynasties may rise and fall, govern
ments may come and go, the name OF
their belief may be changed, and little
differences in ritual and service may
spring up, but from aeon unto aon the
people are unchanged. 1t is the same
life that they lead and the same things
that they worship. Back, far back into
the night of time, so far back that
the very memory of those then living
is irrevocably lost in the void of the
forgotten past, the dark-skinned peo-
pie, wandering naked and unshamed in
the forests depths of the Island of Cey-
Ion, looked with wide eyes, in which
the freshness and the wonder of the
youth time of mankind still shone with
the brightness of the dawn, upon
Adams Peak, the great, solitary noun
tain, rising lonely in its grandeur and
height from the low hills around it and
the sea of forest at its feet. Clouds
capped its hoary summit, storms played
around its heights, the very lightnings
themselves, which they so dreaded and
revered, seemed born among its great
rocks and deep ravines; and gazing
upon its sublimity In storm, and upon
it's majesty in peace, they inno-
Gently wondered until wonder grew
to worship. So slight have
been the changes wrought upon
it's rocks by the wear and tear of four
thousand years of storm that the very
paths to its sacred summit that were
followed centuries before the beginning
of the present era are worn by the feet
of the weary pilgrims of to-day. There
is a legend that the iron chains fastened
to the walls of rock to give the pilgrims
safety along the precipices of the last
SKY league" were placed there in the
time and by the order of Alexander.
The links, though worn, are sound even
yet. About mountain such as this.
beautiful in itself, long considered to
be the loftiest in all Ceylon, and holy,
if only from the steady voice of four
thousand years of prayer, legends are
sure to gather cloudlike and thick.
Adams Peak is clothed from base to
summit with one great robe of myth
and tabled story. Not a rock but has
its history, not brook without its le-
gends OF worshiper or worshiped. Be-
meath this overhanging cliff Gautama
Buddha slept; upon the dizzy height
Buddha, in his second incarnation,
prayed. Although specially sacred to
Buddha it is not only Buddhsts who
regard this mountain as q holy spot
Hindoos and Mohammedans respect and
reverence it, as, too, did our own Chris
tian people, in earlier and simpler times
than these. But although the whole
mountain is regarded as holy by all
Oriental people, it is only the sacred
footprint on the bold orag at the very
summit that is actually worshiped. To
perform pilgrimage to this and to lay
an Offering upon it is to a Buddhist
what visit to Mecca is to Mohamme-
dan. The time for the greatest num-
Der of pilgrims to visit the mountain is
April and May, but all the year round
q steady stream of devotees flows to
this shrine of the most holy OF all the
relics of their great teacher.