entombment of some bone of the great prophet,
Buddha, or a well-known saint. The annals
of Ceylon, which begin in the fifth century before
our era, give circumstantial details respecting
the erection of these stupendous piles;
and there can be little doubt, judging from the
ruins alone, that two of them at least were
higher than St. Paul's Cathedral. The build-
ing of these dagobahs, as they are called, was
thought to be an act of merit, consequently
kings who had probably not been very noted
in their prime for a religious cast of mind,
endeavoured, as the years stepped on, to
make up for lost time by erecting these sacred
structures. They were built commonly of
brick, coated with hard cement. The base
and foundation consisted, however, of enor-
mous blocks of granite, which abounds in the
north of the island, and the sides were richly
ornamented with carvings in bas-relief, exe-
cuted with some skill and correctness. The
carvings generally represent religious processions,
in which the elephant, horse, ox, camel,
and goat take a large part. A small spire
usually surmounted the great bell-shaped
dome; and this form of construction is characteristic
of the sacred dagobahs of Buddhism
in every country which builds dagobahs, from
Ceylon and Siam to Tartary and China.

One of these singular structures was opened,
in another part of the island, by Mr. Layard
- not Layard, late of Nineveh, but his father,
who was a Civil servant in Ceylon for
upwards of thirty years- and the interior was
found accurately to correspond with the
descriptions left us in the native annals. A
small cavity was found in the centre; in its
shape a miniature of the dagobah itself, the
four sides of which were found to be mathematically
correct in bearing North, South,
East, and West. The contents were;- a rude
stone urn, containing some decayed bones, a
little heap of coins, several gold and silver
plates, and ornaments of no great value, and a
collection of dust which had probably once
lived and breathed in the shape of an offering
of flowers.

Had these buildings been erected in the
dry atmosphere of Egypt, they would have
doubtless been at the present day objects
of curiosity and admiration to a great many
visitors; but in Ceylon, where the atmosphere
is moist, and the parasitic plants
seek in every direction for support and soil,
trees are soon to be seen growing on the
highest piles of masonry, and every breeze
tends to break up the building, and adds its
crumb to the surrounding ruins. The most
remarkable of these dagobahs at Anurajapoora
were raised during the second and third centuries
before the Christian era; and, when
we consider the time and the destructive
influences to which they have so long been
subject, we rather wonder that the faintest
outline of their old form should remain.

These are not the only evidences of the
former greatness of Anurajapoora, although,
from their size and elevation, they are the
most conspicuous. The vast extent of the
ancient city is proved by the ruins of the
walls, which have been completely traced.
They form a square of which each side is
sixteen miles in length; and, although we
know very well that such cities were not like
our own- that they contained large gardens,
tanks, and fields within them- yet there can
scarcely be a doubt that, in this case, the
population must have been large, and its
wealth and importance great, if it was thought
worth while to build so ample a defence.

The tanks- now sources of malaria and
fever, from neglect and the breaking down
of their sides- were formerly works of much
importance. Many of them, in the neighbourhood
of the capital (that is, in the north
of the island), were from ten to fifteen miles
in circumference, and supplied water to extensive
tracts of country. Those within the
walls were surrounded by dykes formed
of gigantic blocks of granite, which astonish
even the European traveller by their enormous
size. The natives of the vicinity gravely
tell us, and firmly believe too, that these
works were the works of giants, and not of
ordinary men. It was estimated by an intelligent
officer who visited the district in 1830,
that it would be beyond the power of the
British Government in the island, with its
present resources, to restore one of these vast
excavations to its first condition.

The native annals tell us, that in the second
century before our era, one of the greatest
of Ceylonese Kings, Gaimour, erected a great
palace for the accommodation of several
hundreds of priests; it was two hundred and
seventy feet square, and as many in height,
containing nine stories, and in every story
one hundred apartments. It stood upon
sixteen hundred granite pillars. On account
of its having been roofed with metal, it
was called the Lowa Maha Paya, or Great
Brazen Palace.

When we read a narrative like this in
the early annals of a remote island, we feel
disposed to regard it as a fiction. Possibly
it was not. The building has disappeared;
but the granite columns remain to attest the
truth of at least one part of the description.
Massive, grand, and dark- exposed to
the rain and winds of nearly two thousand
years- the majority of them yet rise
above the surface of the ground; some have
fallen, and some have been removed, but the
places of all are clearly to be distinguished;
and the traveller, by pacing the district, can
satisfy himself of the general correctness of
the measurements given by the Cingalese
historian, for the ground plan, at any rate.
The building was visited by a Chinese
traveller, Fa Hian, in 412 A.D., and the
account he gave of it, as translated by
M. Remusat in Paris, exactly corresponds
with the description I have quoted. A
spacious hall occupied the centre, adorned