of much art and of immense labor for
the purpose of reservoirs, from the supply of which the requisite
amount of land could be irrigated for rice cultivation. A valley of
the required extent being selected, the courses of neighboring or
distant rivers were conducted into it, and the exit of the waters was
prevented by great causeways, or dams, of solid masonry, which extended
for some miles across the lower side of the valley thus converted into
a lake. The exit of the water was then regulated by means of sluices,
from which it was conducted by channels to the rice-lands.

These tanks are of various extent, and extremely numerous throughout
Ceylon. The largest are those of Minneria, Kandellai, Padavellkiellom,
and the Giant Tank. These are from fifteen to twenty-five miles in
circumference; but in former times, when the sluices were in repair and
the volume of water at its full height, they must have been much larger.

In those days the existence of a reservoir of water was a certain
indication of a populous and flourishing neighborhood; and the chief
cities of the country were accordingly situated in those places which
were always certain of a supply. So careful were the inhabitants in
husbanding those liquid resources upon which their very existence
depended that even the surplus waters of one lake were not allowed to
escape unheeded. Channels were cut, connecting a chain of tanks of
slightly varying elevations, over an extent of sixty or seventy miles
of apparently flat country, and the overflow of one tank was thus
conducted in succession from lake to lake, until they all attained the
desired level.

In this manner was the greater portion of Ceylon kept in the highest
state of cultivation. From the north to the south the island was
thickly peopled, and the only portions which then remained in the hands
of nature were those which are now seen in the state of primeval forest.

Well may Ceylon in those times have deserved the name of the "Paradise
of the East." The beauties which nature has showered upon the land were
heightened by cultivation; the forest-capped mountains rose from a
waving sea of green; the valleys teemed with wealth; no thorny jungles
gave a barren terminable prospect, but the golden tints of ripening
crops spread to the horizon. Temples stood upon the hill-tops; cities
were studded over the land, their lofty dagobas and palaces reflected
on the glassy surface of the lakes, from which thei