mother empties one kerosene tin after another of water over it in a deluge. Basawak Kulam has been identified with the Abhaya tank made about 300 B.C. and has therefore been in existence from the earliest days of Anuradhapura.'

A large jay, with wings and tail of metallic blue, has spread himself to get warmed through by the sun on a heap of red earth. The markings on his extended wings are like those on a winged scarab of Egypt. Hideous little scavenger birds, called "The Seven Sisters," in nun-like livery, with thick heads and necks, give out metallic cries.

Such is Anuradhapura as it is at present, and many of the features are the same as about the time of King Dutugemunu. But then it was a thickly populated city, as large as London.

"The city covered an area of 256 square miles. The distance between opposite gates, north and south, was sixteen miles. In one street are eleven thousand houses, many of them being two storeys in height; the smaller streets are innumerable."

Skinner (Fifty Years in Ceylon), who, as beforementioned, visited the place on a road-making expedition in 1832, speaks of the " great north and south street" as "a forest, only defined by the wells, which, centuries ago, supplied the houses with water." The line of some of these streets can still be traced. In them the bright-robed people, with whom were mingled thousands of yellow-robed monks, passed to and fro, while lordly elephants strolled along having passage

1 Ancient Ceylon, by H. Parker. (Luzac, 1909.)
* Quoted by Forbes from "an ancient native account.”

made for them. Beyond the walls, from a distance, could be seen the golden roofs flashing in the sun against the thrilling blue of the sky. Inside, if it were a festival day, maybe the huge dome of Ruanweli would be one mass of flowers -lotus, orchid, and jasmine-scenting all the air with an almost overpowering odour. There were great parks containing pavilions; peacocks strolled on the close-clipped grass between the flower-beds, and the vast stretches of mirror-like water were freely used for bathing. Around the bo-tree rose a temple of several storeys, and there, as to-day, were always worshippers, silent, darkfaced, offering flowers and bowing themselves in reverence. Men of the lowest caste hastened along, watering the streets from skins to lay the dust. The grand buildings set among the trees gleamed like marble and were adorned with free bold carving and bands of gold and silver, and inside there were many pillared richly decorated halls, containing possibly thrones of gold and ivory, holding in corners great golden images of Buddha looking out from inscrutable jewelled eyes. And in various parts of this great city were alms-houses where the poor received food; hospitals where complaints are tended and healed; and on the outskirts, great cemeteries for the burial of the dead.

A well-known authority gives it as his opinion:

"Anuradhapura was not one city but two, one within the other, and the royal residences and chief monastic edifices and dagabas were enclosed within walls of great strength, and shut in by massive gates, flanked by watch towers and

guard houses. Beyond these limits was the outer city set apart for the lower orders, wherein the business life of the capital was transacted. It consisted mainly of one long, wide street, composed of shops for the sale of every description of goods, and these were divided-as usual in Eastern cities into quarters for the various callings of provision-dealers, drapers, goldsmiths, artisans, and even to the retailers of children's toys, some of which have been found buried beneath the ruins of buildings. On the outskirts of the lesser city were extensive tracts set apart for the growth of innumerable flowers, solely for the decoration of temples and dagabas and for the ornamentation of the streets on great Buddhist festal days."

An account of Anuradhapura at this time is given in the Mahawansa, in mentioning a visitor who had never been there before.

"Bathing in the Tissa tank, making offerings at the great Bo-tree and the Thuparama dagaba, and for the purpose of seeing the whole capital, entering the town and purchasing aromatic drugs from the bazaars, he departed out of the northern gate, and gathering uppalla flowers from the uppalla-planted marshes, presented himself to the Brahman."

Mr. Parker, who was in the Irrigation Department, puts the southern gate of the Inner City to the north of Thuparama, which was built in the Nandana garden (also called Jotivana) south of the city, while further south still was the Mahamegho garden which contained the Bo-tree.

1 Architectural Remains (Folio), by J. G. Smither, F.R.I.B.A., no date, circ. 1890.

2 Ancient Ceylon. (Luzac, 1909.)

1

The signs and sounds of ancient glory die away, the music of the drums grows dim in our ears, and the flashing of gold and silver vanishes; once more we awake to reality on the hillock in the great peace of the present-time city. Climbing down we may pass on toward Thuparama and continue our investigations. Amid numerous evidences of the former monasteries we presently come to one a little south-west of the dagaba, where the huge balustrade of the entrance stairs is split from top to bottom. This balustrade and its companion are well worth examining. The design is quite unusual. The conventional lion is crammed into a small space and the rest of the stones is divided into small compartments, with various dainty and graceful carvings.

But the gem of the carving is on the right side of the southern stone, and consists in a spirited representation of a fight between a cobra and mongoose, while a monkey, clasping its baby to its breast, looks down from a large-leaved tree. A drawing of this unique carving was made especially for this book by Muhandiram D. A. L. Perera, of the Archæological Survey. This is worth examining in some detail, as such a homely subject is extremely rare. For the position of the stone see Frontispiece.

There are graceful figures of women on the stone to the north, and a drawing in low relief of a house or temple at the inner end of each balustrade. These are some of the very few representations of houses remaining to show us what such buildings were like when complete. The columns exactly resemble those standing about