at Ratnapoora near the foot of Adam's Peak, he was enabled to
pursue his studies under the guidance of Galle, a learned priest,
through whose instrumentality he obtained from the Wihara, at
Mulgiri-galla, near Tangalle (a temple founded about 130 years before
the Christian era), some rare and important manuscripts, the perusal of
which gave an impulse and direction to the investigations which occupied
the rest of his life.

[Footnote 1: REINAUD, _Memoire sur l' Inde_, p. 3.]

[Footnote 2: GEORGE TURNOUR was the eldest son of the Hon. George
Turnour, son of the first Earl of Winterton; his mother being Emilie,
niece to the Cardinal Due de Beausset. He was born in Ceylon in 1799 and
having been educated in England under the guardianship of the Right Hon.
Sir Thomas Maitland, then governor of the island, he entered the Civil
Service in 1818, in which he rose to the highest rank. He was
distinguished equally by his abilities and his modest display of them.
Interpreting in its largest sense the duty enjoined on him, as a public
officer, of acquiring a knowledge of the native languages, he extended
his studies, from the vernacular and written Singhalese to Pali, the
great root and original of both, known only to the Buddhist priesthood,
and imperfectly and even rarely amongst them. No dictionaries then
existed to assist in defining the meaning of Pali terms which no teacher
could be found capable of rendering into English, so that Mr. Turnour
was entirely dependent on his knowledge of Singhalese as a medium for
translating them. To an ordinary mind such obstructions would have
proved insurmountable, aggravated as they were by discouragements
arising from the assumed barrenness of the field, and the absence of all
sympathy with his pursuits, on the part of those around him, who
reserved their applause and encouragement till success had rendered him
indifferent to either. To this apathy of the government officers, Major
Forbes, who was then the resident at Matelle, formed an honourable
exception; and his narrative of _Eleven Years in Ceylon_ shows with what
ardour and success he shared the tastes and cultivated the studies to
which he had been directed by the genius and example of Turnour. So
zealous and unobtrusive were the pursuits of the latter, that even his
immediate connexions and relatives were unaware of the value and extent
of his acquirements till apprised of their importance and profundity by
the acclamation with w