mployed by the author of the _Rajavali_
partake of the exaggeration common to all oriental narratives, no one
who has visited the regions now silent and deserted, once the homes of
millions, can hesitate to believe that when the island was in the zenith
of its prosperity, the population of Ceylon must of necessity have been
at least ten times as great as it is at the present day.

The same train of thought leads to a clearer conception of the means by
which this dense population was preserved, through so many centuries, in
spite of frequent revolutions and often recurring invasions; as well as
of the causes which led to its ultimate disappearance, when intestine
decay had wasted the organisation on which the fabric of society rested.

Cultivation, as it existed in the north of Ceylon, was almost entirely
dependent on the store of water preserved in each village tank; and it
could only be carried on by the combined labour of the whole local
community, applied in the first instance to collect and secure the
requisite supply for irrigation, and afterwards to distribute it to the
rice lands, which were tilled by the united exertions of the
inhabitants, amongst whom the crop was divided in due proportions. So
indispensable were concord and union in such operations, that
injunctions for their maintenance were sometimes engraven on the rocks,
as an inperishable exhortation, to forbearance and harmony.[1]

[Footnote 1: See the inscription on the rock of Mihintala, A. D. 262,
TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, Appendix, p. 90; and a similar one on a rock at
Pollanarrua, ibid., p, 92.]

Hence, in the recurring convulsions which overthrew successive
dynasties, and transferred the crown to usurpers, with a facile
rapidity, otherwise almost unintelligible, it is easy to comprehend that
the mass of the people had the strongest possible motives for passive
submission, and were constrained to acquiescence by an instinctive dread
of the fatal effects of prolonged commotion.

If interrupted in their industry, by the dread of such events, they
retired till the storm had blown over, and returned, after each
temporary dispersion, to resume possession of the lands and their
village tank.

The desolation which now reigns over the plains which the Singhalese
formerly tilled, was precipitated by the reckless domination of the
Malabars, in the fourteenth and following centuries. The destruction of
reservoirs and tanks has been ascribed to defective cons