Close by the bo-tree is the bazaar with its long straggling street. These "bazaars" are getting more and more given up to the display of cheap European goods, and increasingly difficult is it to pick up home-made wares, but some good baskets, admirably plaited, and of convenient shapes, can be bought in Anuradhapura.

The " cab-stand," where bullock hackries congregate, is in the middle of the bazaar. It is not often, however, that a good trotting bullock is available unless by special arrangement, and with any other sort progress is very slow. But the bullocks are usually kindly treated and fairly well-fed; there is not a great deal of tail-twisting, and sores are rare. The Indian variety, with long curved horns, is seen as plentifully as the little stumpy-horned bullocks of Ceylon. The animal has the yoke fixed to bear against the hump, and a few strands of rope secure it under his neck. The result is that if any weight is thrown suddenly at the back of the cart he is in danger of being strangled, and much dexterity has to be exercised in adjusting the weight for mounting and descending from the carts, which are twowheeled only. The charge for these hackries is half a rupee an hour, and the longer you keep him waiting anywhere on the way the better pleased is the sleepy-headed native driver.

The well-being of the people is carefully considered by the authorities. Between the bazaar and the hotel are three large ponds kept strictly "by order" for drinking, bathing, and washing purposes respectively. The unregenerate native, like his Burmese brother, much prefers to bathe,

wash his clothes, and drink-in that order—all in the same water, but he is learning better things.

The bathing-pond is greatly appreciated; at every hour of the day men and women, at their respective sets of steps, dip and pour water over their black shining locks, and they are always clad with perfect decency. Small boys meantime catch miniature fish, and are as eager and proud of the results as their little white brothers. At the washing-pond energetic dhobies smack the white clothes on the stones with reports like pistol-shots, and the tortoises sit pensively with outstretched necks in the little hollows under the bank watching them. The green grass behind is perpetually spread with drying clothes.

Not far from these ponds, between them and the bazaar, is the English Church, and a road running parallel with that through the bazaar, on the north, passes between two small beautifully built bathing-tanks, disused now, though one has been excellently repaired. Tanks such as these, formed with hewn stone for bathing purposes, are called pokuna, and are a very noticeable feature of ancient Ceylon. There are other larger specimens also at Anuradhapura.

At the bazaar end, near the bo-tree, there are some ruins of antiquity actually among the houses, the so-called Peacock Palace, a collection of leaning columns and carved capitals, enclosed in barbed wire to keep them from desecration, being one. Nothing is known as to the origin of its decorative name, and it was obviously a vihara, or temple, and never a palace." This is a little way down the Kurunegala Road, almost opposite

to the Archæological Survey Offices and the small attached museum. Returning again to the other side of the bazaar near the fruit market, we see the ruin of the Ransimalakaya also enclosed. This at one time was used merely as a cattle pound, and was only saved from total destruction by being enclosed. The name is a modern one; its history also being unknown.

But far the most striking object in the vicinity of the bo-tree is the group of 1,600 columns known as Lohopasada, or the Brazen Palace, built first in the reign of King Dutugemunu in the second century B.C., though subsequently often restored.

We have a most minute account of the building of this marvellous place in the Mahawansa. The king, contrary to the usual custom of his time, decided to pay his workmen, and before beginning deposited "eight lacs" and a thousand suits of clothing, and vessels filled with honey and sugar at the four gates for their use. The palace rose to the height of nine storeys (afterwards reduced to seven), all covered with brazen tiles, which shone like gold in the burning sun. It was surrounded by a polished wall broken by the four gates, which were "embattled." Inside, the splendour was so great as to be almost unbeliev、 able. Each storey contained one hundred apartments festooned with beads and flower ornaments consisting of gems set in gold. There was a gilt hall supported on golden columns in the centre, and besides the usual decorations this hall had festoons of pearls also. In the centre was an ivory throne with the sun on it in gold, the moon in silver, and the stars in pearls. As for the

furnishing of this magnificent shell, it sounds like that of a modern house, for it was provided with chairs and couches and woollen carpets, but all of the most costly materials of their kind, for it is particularly mentioned that even the ladle of the rice-boiler was of gold! It is not exactly known with what intention this splendid building was founded, but it is supposed to have been the chief residence of the monks of the Maha vihara, the most important and oldest established community in Anuradhapura. This word vihara, or viharé, for it is written either way, is applied either to monasteries or temples in the Mahawansa, but always refers to some religious building and never to a secular one. A vihara seems to have been at first a hall or meetingplace of monks, and afterwards was naturally used to signify a temple which may have included an inner shrine.

The gnarled grey monoliths are still standing in a perfect forest closely crowded together and occupy the space of a fair-sized English cathedral. They are in forty parallel lines with forty pillars in each. The problem is to conjecture how anyone could have found space to walk between them, but it is highly probable that the groundspace was not occupied, being, after the fashion. of the choungs, or monks' dwellings in Burma, merely an open space unwalled. The building underwent many vicissitudes, being thrown down by Maha Sena, the "apostate" king in A.D. 286, and rebuilt by his son and successor. It will be noted that in the centre and at the corners the columns are of double thickness, com

pared with the outer ones, which are narrower, having been split, probably to supply the place of some which had been lost or broken. The last rebuilding was due to Parakrama the Great in the twelfth century.

I do not know if the Cingalese monks, like the Burmese ones, dislike having any one's feet above their heads, but it seems that it cannot have been so in the old days if each storey were divided into a number of apartments (the round number 100 may be taken as merely symbolic of many) instead of those above the first being merely ornamental shells, roofed in but unoccupied as in Burmese monasteries.

It is a curious sensation to stand alone in this stone forest, recalling the march of time and picturing the sombre flitting of the dark-skinned priests, and the many intrigues which were carried on within these precincts ages ago.

"But all their life is rounded by a shade,

And every road goes down behind the rim."

Now the little striped furry-tailed squirrels run up and down with a curious clockwork movement, and flitting lizards sun themselves and vanish.

The legend told of the common or palm-squirrel is that it helped the monkeys in making Adam's Bridge for the god Rama, by rolling in the sand and so gathering it up in its hairs, and then bestowing it between the stones to bind them together. To encourage it Rama stroked it with three fingers, leaving the impress in the form of three stripes down its back.

Straight up from the Bo-tree, past the Brazen