surrounding a space at the foot. Within this three flights of stairs mount to three terraces, one above the other. On the topmost of these is the entrance porch to what is supposed to have been the royal palace.

Mr. Williams repaired the highest, or third staircase, which is by far the most elaborately ornamented. He reset the stones, raised and replaced the grotesque stone lions which had fallen and were broken. He did some repairs to the palace entrance, but could do little more for want of time or of funds.

It was not until 1910-11 that the Survey authorities were able to take up the work. The first object was to clear out the jungle growth to the east of the rock on ground-level. The remains here were of little importance, with the exception of the Dalada Maligawa, the Tooth Temple designed to receive that sacred relic when brought here by King Bhuwaneka Bahu. It may be noted that this Tooth Relic was an adjunct of supreme power, and when the king moved his seat of authority, it went with him. The loss of it entailed great diminution of prestige. The style of this temple is Hindu, and it is made of granite. There is not much to remark upon beyond the torana, or canopy of a door, carved handsomely from a single stone and enclosing an image of the seated Buddha in high relief. This still remains, but is on the ground.

The chief sights of Yapahuwa are not to be found here, but in the fine stairs and the palace porch on the cliff-side. The first of these stairways within the ramp consists of twenty-three

steps broken by a landing. It leads to a broad terrace from which springs a second flight. This lay in ruins until 1911, when it was taken in hand by the Survey and rebuilt for the convenience of visitors, who had previously had to struggle over a heap of sliding stone to gain the upper buildings.

Almost immediately above it the third stairway of thirty-five steps, the one repaired first by Mr. Williams, continues the ascent. Here again the steps are broken by an intermediate landing. Of the rich, flamboyant carving it is possible to give an idea only by detail. Out of all the quaint semi-mythical beasts the "Ceylon" lions stand out boldly, and "despite their weird conventionality, the attitude of the enraged animals, half-rising for attack, is admirably expressed." Mr. Bell says, however:

"The sculptures which delight the eye and instinctively command special need of admiration for their marvellous symmetry and grace, are not the boldly executed animal warders of the staircase (lions, etc.) which add much to the general splendour of the whole scheme, but the more delicate efforts of the stone-masons as displayed in the chaste conception and artistic finish of the carved members of the Porch-the spirited frieze, or dado, of its vestibule's stereobate, the windows in its façade, with their elaborately embellished pediments, and, finally, the rich complex columns which sustained the roof." (1910-11 Report.)

There is an account of all this in Once a Week, 1864, by a Mr. J. Bailey of the C.C.S., who had visited it in the midst of the jungle when all un

tended and unnoticed, but this account, though correct enough in its description of things actually seen, is not to be relied upon in matters of history or deduction. One of the features of the carving is a dado of dancers and musicians with very spirited figures-"a veritable cinematograph in granite of the most vivid and entrancing character."

To describe the staircase in untechnical language, it consists of two flights one above the other, broken by a small landing, and flanked by heavy walls, or wings, not in the least like anything to which Western eyes are accustomed. These walls rise in a series of vertical panels facing downwards. The panels are capped by canopies which thus rise one above the other, giving an effect of extraordinary richness. The lowest of all is divided into two storeys, or two panels, the uppermost of which is the smaller, and is decorated by a gracefully carved figure of a female, holding a bowl of flowers, a very curious change from the ordinary guard-stone, unless, indeed, we are to accept as its representative the tiny fat dwarf on the ground on each side at the very foot of the stairs. There are other decorative figures to be noticed higher up, and about half way, resting on one of the facing walls, are the boldly sculptured lions with their grinning faces turned a little inward toward each other.

The whole staircase, with the broken effect of the "stepped" walls or vertical panels, whichever we like to call them, the delicately carved figures, the grimacing lions, forms an extraordinary jumble of rich detail.

At the top is the splendid arch leading to the

palace precincts flanked by two stone windows under heavily carved toranas. These two windows were once filled with pierced stone-work of a most curious kind. When Mr. Bailey visited the place, one, the western, was still here, but the eastern was broken to pieces, except for a few scraps. The perfect window has since been removed to the Colombo Museum. It seems a pity that it cannot be replaced. It is one huge slab of stone, 7 inches thick and 4 feet 7 inches by 3 feet 3 inches in size. It is cut into forty-five rings, or circles, and in each circle is a figure either human or animal, with that individual difference which is such a charm in artistic work. From the row of sacred geese in the top row to the large paunched dwarfs at the bottom row the work is perfect and complete. For this alone Yapahuwa should be remembered.

Once through the porch, which is finely built and proportioned, we face desolation. High on one side rises the bare cliff face, in front is a tangled mass of stones and shrubs. There is nothing left which can conjure up the palace once standing here, except its magnificently planned approach. In fact, the palace was never completed. The time of Bhuwaneka's troubled rule was not long enough. His conception was certainly royal, if we may judge from what was done, but by the time the staircases and façade had been made, gloom and famine had descended on the land; neither funds nor labour permitted of its being continued.

It is possible to continue to the summit of the rock by a rough track, helped out by a few steps here and there, but there is little more to see. A

few caves, a few stone ruins, a pokuna about half an acre in extent, these alone remain to tell of the presence of bygone life.

The vision we carry away from Yapahuwa is of an unfulfilled conception. If only the Pandyans had stayed at home another twenty years we might have had a specimen of a fourteenthcentury palace of unrivalled splendour standing on its isolated terrace beneath the steep rock.

So far as concerns the object with which this book is written the tale is done. We have traced the capitals of the kings of Ceylon from their earliest foundation in the sacred city of Anuradhapura, through the brief interlude of Sigiri, and on to the scarcely less interesting city of Polonnaruwa. We have seen the attempt made to retrieve the glory of the kings by these buildings on Yapahuwa and its frustration. Of the other seats of royalty they can hardly be called capitals-where the dispossessed kings ruled from time to time until they could recover their ground, there is little to see. These range from Dambadeniya in the thirteenth century, Kurunegala in the fourteenth, Gampola also fourteenth, Cotta in the fifteenth. Then we come to Kandy, which was the capital from 1592-1798. But Kandy has been written about in a score of guide-books, and of it there is nothing new to tell.

Earlier even than Anuradhapura is the very ancient capital Magama (Tissamaharama), but this is in the extreme south of the island. It is visited by pilgrims, but not many Europeans will go so far out of the beaten track. Those who wish for " more," had better rather go afield to such