to
a pagan temple, built between two and three thousand years ago. The
temple was doubtless originally founded on the dry land, but this
indestructible floor is between nine and ten feet below the level of
the sea at this writing.

Ceylon is peculiar in its shape, resembling a cone, the smaller end
nearest to the continent which lies so close to it. This northern
portion of the island is a flat, narrow peninsula with a sandy soil,
but which by proper management is made to yield certain crops fairly
well. The western and southern coasts are low and densely wooded,
having many small bays and picturesque indentations, while the eastern
side is characterized by a bold and precipitous shore, quite
inaccessible from the sea, yet affording one or two excellent harbors
and several indifferent ones. The important and much-praised port of
Trincomalee is on this side of the island, where several open
roadsteads are commercially available for coasting vessels, so built,
like most oriental water-craft, that they can be drawn up on the beach
in rough weather. The coast is blockaded on the northwest by
numberless rocks, shoals, and sandbanks, impeding navigation, though
the island can be circumnavigated, as already indicated, by means of
the Paumben Pass, between Ramisseram and the continent. The north and
northwest coasts are especially low and flat, undoubtedly formed by
ages of sand deposits brought down from the north by the ceaseless
currents and lodged upon coral formations as a foundation. In area,
Ceylon is more than three times the size of Massachusetts, containing
twenty-five thousand square miles. The circuit of the island by water
is calculated to be about seven hundred miles. In Pliny's time he made
the circumference four times that distance. The latest statistics give
it a population of three millions, which is a sparse occupancy for so
extensive a territory, and one whose natural resources are sufficient
for the support of that number of people many times multiplied. Taken
as a whole, the island is perhaps the most thinly inhabited spot in
the Orient, though it is the largest and most important of what are
known as the crown colonies of the British Empire. Its number of
people is annually on the increase, as shown by the English Colonial
Blue Book,--an indisputable evidence of material prosperity. The
extensive ruins of ancient cities existing in the interior show that
there must have been in the past at least thrice