irming the account given of its original dimensions.
Lieutenant, now Major, Skinner has recently informed me that, on mature
reflection, he has reason to fear that his first inference was
precipitate. In a letter of the 8th of May, 1856, he says:--"It was in
1833 I first visited Anarajapoora, when I made my survey of its ruins.
The supposed foundation of the western face of the city wall was pointed
out near the village of Alia-parte by the people, and I hastily adopted
it. I had not at the time leisure to follow up this search and determine
how far it extended, but from subsequent visits to the place I have been
led to doubt the accuracy of this tradition, though on most other points
I found the natives tolerably accurate in their knowledge of the history
of the ancient capital. I have since sought for traces of the other
faces of the supposed wall, at the distances from the centre of the city
at which it was said to have existed, but without success." The ruins
which Major Skinner saw at Alia-parte are most probably those of one of
the numerous forts which the Singhalese kings erected at a much later
period, to keep the Malabars in check.]

The sacred tooth of Buddha was publicly exposed on sacred days in the
capital with gorgeous ceremonies, which he recounts, and thence carried
in procession to "the mountains without fear;" the road to which was
perfumed and decked with flowers for the occasion; and the festival was
concluded by a dramatic representation of events in the life of Buddha,
illustrated by scenery and costumes, with figures of elephants and
stags, so delicately coloured as to be undistinguishable from nature.[1]

[Footnote 1: FA HIAN, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 334, &c.]

CHAP. IX.

KINGS OF THE "LOWER DYNASTY."

[Sidenote: A.D. 302.]

The story of the kings of Ceylon of the _Sulu-wanse_ or "lower line," is
but a narrative of the decline of the power and prosperity which had
been matured under the Bengal conquerors and of the rise of the Malabar
marauders, whose ceaseless forays and incursions eventually reduced
authority to feebleness and the island to desolation. The vapid
biography of the royal imbeciles who filled the throne from the third to
the thirteenth century scarcely embodies an incident of sufficient
interest to diversify the monotonous repetition of temples founded and
dagobas repaired, of tanks constructed and priests endowed with lands
reclaimed and fertilised by th