Near the temple, all was noise and confusion, and it was with some difficulty that I forced my way through the dense crowd, and reached the steps of the venerated shrine. The priest stationed at the entrance made a way in for me as well as he could, but the pressure inside was intense. Hundreds of men and women pressed eagerly forward to reach the flight of huge stone stairs which led up to the sacred depositary. It was as bad as a crush to get into the Crystal Palace. My passage was so slow that I had time to examine and admire the fine antique carved work on the pillars and ceiling of the entrance-hall, as well as on the tall pilasters which lined the ample staircase. There was a beauty of style and a high degree of finish about this work that could not be attained in Ceylon in the present day. Arrived, at length, at the inner temple or sacred shrine above, I passed with the rest, between a richly brocaded curtain which hung in folds across the entrance at the top of the stairs, and stood before the famed relic of Buddha, or rather the jeweled casket which contained it. I felt disappointed at the spectacle here, arising, perhaps, from my taking no interest in the exhibition as a religious ceremony, and looking at it merely as an empty show, not far removed from the status of Bartholemew Fair. The strong glare of a hundred lights, the heat and crowd of so many in so small a place, the sickly perfume of the piles of Buddha flowers heaped before the shrine by the pilgrims, the deafening, discordant din of a score of tom-toms, and vile screeching pipes, made me glad enough to descend the stairs, and, flinging a rupee into the poor-box of the god, to escape once more into the fresh air.