Having completed a hasty perambulation of the town we drive boldly into the undergrowth to where a strange-looking building lies half-buried in the foliage. It proves to be a Buddhist temple, an octagonal-shaped structure with a bell-like roof. As we enter within its precincts, boy priests are particularly careful to obliterate the marks of our _heathen_ feet on their beautiful floor of golden sand. Inside are eight figures of the good Buddha, alternately standing and sitting, depicted with that calm, inscrutable countenance so remarkable in the image of this deity wherever this religion prevails. Before each figure is a small altar, littered with flowers, the most conspicuous blossom being the lotus lily, the symbol of this faith. Other than these devotional oblations there is little to be seen; what part in the ceremonies the priests take, or where they perform their functions, does not appear. At the gate of the Court on our passing out, stands a bold, yellow-robed priest, with a metal salver in his hand, suggestive of donations. We told the old gent with naval bluntness that we were not in the habit of aiding the Society for the propagation of paganism--a remark, by the way, which it was as well, perhaps, he could not understand. Sunday, October 6th.--Though sailors are excellent singers--especially of hymn tunes--I never before heard a hymn rendered so effectively on board a man-of-war as that beautiful composition by Bishop Heber, commencing "What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle," and which was one of the appropriate hymns for our morning Service. October 8th.--Towards evening we bade good-bye to this favoured land, and stood away to the eastward. We had made good an offing, and set everything aloft snug for the night, when heavy volumes of steam were found to be issuing from the regions of the engine-room. A steam pipe had burst, a fracture of so little moment that after a short delay to effect repairs we were able to resume our voyage. But though the damage was not serious, so far as the ship was concerned, to us, personally, it was a matter of some consequence, on account of our bags and chests being stowed immediately over the fractured pipe; and in order to secure our property, we were compelled to make a blind rush for it, re-appearing from our vapour bath, as red as boiled lobsters.