An account of the interior of Ceylon, and of its inhabitants. With travels in that island / By John Davy.
- John Davy
- Date:
- 1821
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An account of the interior of Ceylon, and of its inhabitants. With travels in that island / By John Davy. Source: Wellcome Collection.
507/574 page 467
![ROCK-TEMPLES. 457 the island, the most perfect of their kind and the most ancient, and in the highest state of preservation and order. Dambooloo-galle, the rock in which these temples are situated, is almost insulated and of a vast size. Its perpendicular height above the plain is about six hundred feet.* Very few parts of it are covered with wood, and in general its surface is bare and black. The following outlines, intended to represent longitudinal and transverse sections, will give a more tolerably correct idea of its form than verbal description perhaps can convey. The temples, which give this place celebrity, are parts of a vast cavern in the south side of the rock, at the height of about three hundred and fifty feet above the plain.']' The approach to them is up the eastern shelving extremity of the rock, and through an archway of masonry of apparently modern construction, and along a narrow platform of solid rock open to the south, enclosed by a low wall, shaded by trees, and containing in its area a cistern holding rain water, a very small temple and a bogah. The in- terior of the temples is hid externally by a wall rather more than four hundred feet long, perforated with a number of doors and windows, and sheltered and defended not only by the overhang- * On the top of the rock, at 4 P.M., the barometer was 29.0; both thermometers 79°. On the plain below, at 6 P.M., the barometer was 29.69 ; thermometers 80°. t At 4 h. 30 m. P. M., the barometer on the platform before the wihares was 29.29; thermometers 79°.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22014640_0507.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
