Luxurious tropical and subtropical flora: the famed Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya date from the fourteenth century, bougainvillaea and bamboo; the talipot palm has huge leaves; A cattleya orchid and papayas; the latter seem to grow almost everywhere.

Ceremonial dances of Sri-Lanka: Kandyan dancers in silver-ornamented costumes; a dancer destroys a demon by devouring fire, one of the demon's the dance of the cobra, believed to be a human reincarnated in the snake's body.