et sa capitale
quarante li; la population est agglomeree, et la terre produit des
grains en abondance."--HIOUEN-THSANG, liv. iv. p. 194.]

For nearly four hundred years, from the seventh till the eleventh
century, the exploits and escapes of the Malabars occupy a more
prominent portion of the Singbalese annals than that devoted to the
policy of the native sovereigns. They filled every office, including
that of prime minister[1], and they decided the claims of competing
candidates for the crown. At length the island became so infested by
their numbers that the feeble monarchs found it impracticable to effect
their exclusion from Anarajapoora[2]; and to escape from their
proximity, the kings in the eighth century began to move southwards, and
transferred their residence to Pollanarrua, which eventually became the
capital of the kingdom. Enormous tanks were constructed in the vicinity
of the new capital; palaces were erected, surpassing those of the old
city in architectural beauty; dagobas were raised, nearly equal in
altitude to the Thuparama and Ruanwelli, and temples and statues were
hewn out of the living rock, the magnitude and beauty of whose ruins
attest the former splendour of Pollanarrua.[3]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 33.]

[Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, A.D. 686, p. 31.]

[Footnote 3: The first king who built a palace at Pollanarrua was Sri
Sanga Bo II., A.D. 642. His successor, Sri Sanga Bo III., took up his
residence there temporarily, A.D. 702; it was made the capital by Kuda
Akbo, A.D. 769, and its embellishment, the building of colleges, and the
formation of tanks in its vicinity, were the occupations of numbers of
his successors.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 640.]

Notwithstanding their numbers and their power, it is remarkable that the
Malabars were never identified with any plan for promoting the
prosperity and embellishment of Ceylon, or with any undertaking for the
permanent improvement of the island. Unlike the Gangetic race, who were
the earliest colonists, and with whom originated every project for
enriching and adorning the country, the Malabars aspired not to beautify
or enrich, but to impoverish and deface;--and nothing can more
strikingly bespeak the inferiority of the southern race than the single
fact that everything tending to exalt and to civilise, in the early
condition of Ceylon, was introduced by the northern conquerors, whilst
all that contributed to ruin and debase it is disti