truction, and to
the absence of spill-waters, and other facilities for discharging the
surplus-water, during the prevalence of excessive rains; but
independently of the fact that vast numbers of these tanks, though
utterly deserted, remain, in this respect, almost uninjured to the
present day, we have the evidence of their own native historians, that
for upwards of fifteen centuries, the reservoirs, when duly attended to,
successfully defied all the dangers to be apprehended from inundation.
Their destruction and abandonment are ascribable, not so much to any
engineering defect, as to the disruption of the village communities, by
whom they were so long maintained. The ruin of a reservoir, when
neglected and permitted to fall into decay, was speedy and inevitable;
and as the destruction of the village tank involved the flight of all
dependent upon it, the water, once permitted to escape, carried
pestilence and miasma over the plains they had previously covered with
plenty. After such a calamity any partial return of the villagers, even
where it was not prevented by the dread of malaria, would have been
impracticable; for the obvious reason, that where the whole combined
labour of the community was not more than sufficient to carry on the
work of conservancy and cultivation, the diminished force of a few would
have been utterly unavailing, either to effect the reparation of the
watercourses, or to restore the system on which the culture of rice
depends. Thus the process of decay, instead of a gradual decline as in
other countries, became sudden and utter desolation in Ceylon.

From such traces as are perceptible in the story of the earliest
immigrants, it is obvious that in their domestic habits and civil life
they brought with them and perpetuated in Ceylon the same pursuits and
traits which characterised the Aryan races that had colonised the valley
of the Ganges. The Singhalese Chronicles abound, like the ancient Vedas,
with allusions to agriculture and herds, to the breeding of cattle and
the culture of grain. They speak of village communities and of their
social organisation, as purely patriarchal. Women were treated with
respect and deference; and as priestesses and queens they acquired a
prominent place in the national esteem. Rich furniture was used in
dwellings and costly textures for dress; but these were obtained from
other nations, whose ships resorted to the island, whilst its
inhabitants, averse to intercour