“It has long been a wonder, and the wonder is a growing one, that so small an Island as Ceylon should attract so many writers. All the Books on Ceylon, about Ceylon, and touching Ceylon, if collected into one group, we are certain, would make a goodly library of itself, but the subject appears to be inexhaustible. The most recent contribution to this accretion of works on Ceylon, or rather touching Ceylon, is Mr. Skeen’s Book on Adam’s Peak, which, without laying ourselves open to the charge of indiscriminate or extravagant praise, we feel justified in pronouncing worthy the subject, and worthy the writer. Mr. Skeen has at last got into his natural groove, the exploration and elucidation of the romantic traditions, legends, and folk-lore which cluster round the sacred places of Ceylon. Adam’s Peak is pre-eminently a land-mark in the history of the Island, and while it serves to bridge twenty centuries of the past with the present, it has never lost its own peculiar distinctive character, which as the central object of a nation’s faith it has for so long occupied. As it is the most conspicuous and remarkable object in the physical geography of the Island, so has it stood the everlasting monument of a tradition, pointing to the mission of that great philosopher who, more than twenty centuries ago, succeeded in revolutionizing the faith of a whole continent. It is somewhat remarkable that a religion which aspires after annihilation and extinction of all corporeal existence, should yet recognize the imperishable, rock-crowned mountain, as one of the symbols of its faith. Mr. Skeen does not enter into the metaphysics of this question. His business has been to trace out the old traditions and legends, and while refraining from expressing an opinion himself, he has supplied the reader with abundant material from which to draw his own conclusions. He carries us throughout the whole range of ancient Eastern lore; and from the great Hindu epic, the Ramayana, down to the most recent works on the Island, he has ransacked the dark recesses of oriental literature, to illustrate his subject. Mr. Skeen has entered on his task in a spirit of research, and influenced by the strong poetic vein for which he has hitherto been so well known, he has embellished his subject--a subject which in the hands of a mere antiquarian threatened to become dull and prosy--with the life and spirit of romance.