idol. This Dagoba forms the main
centre of the city, from which streets branch off in all directions,
radiating from the circular space in which it stands.

The main street from the entrance-gate continues to the further
extremity of the city, being crossed at right angles in the centre by a
similar street, thus forming two great main streets through the city,
terminating in four great gates or entrances to the town--north, south,
east and west. Continuing along the main street from the great Dagoba
for about a mile, we face another Dagoba of similar appearance, but of
smaller dimensions, also standing in a spacious circle. Near this rises
the king's palace, a noble building of great height, edged at the
corner by narrow octagon towers.

At the further extremity of this main street, close to the opposite
entrance-gate, is the rock temple, with the massive idols of Buddha
flanking the entrance.

This, from the form and position of the existing ruins, we may conceive
to have been the appearance of Pollanarua in its days of prosperity.
But what remains of its grandeur? It has vanished like "a tale that is
told;" it is passed away like a dream; the palaces are dust; the grassy
sod has grown in mounds over the ruins of streets and fallen houses;
nature has turfed them in one common grave with their inhabitants. The
lofty palms have faded away and given place to forest trees, whose
roots spring from the crumbled ruins; the bear and the leopard crouch
in the porches of the temples; the owl roosts in the casements of the
palaces; the jackal roams among the ruins in vain; there is not a bone
left for him to gnaw of the multitudes which have passed away. There
is their handwriting upon the temple wall, upon the granite slab which
has mocked at Time; but there is no man to decipher it. There are the
gigantic idols before whom millions have bowed; there is the same
vacant stare upon their features of rock which gazed upon the
multitudes of yore; but they no longer stare upon the pomp of the
glorious city, but upon ruin, and rank weeds, and utter desolation.
How many suns have risen and how many nights have darkened the earth
since silence has reigned amidst the city, no man can tell. No mortal
can say what fate befell those hosts of heathens, nor when they
vanished from the earth. Day and night succeed each other, and the
shade of the setting sun still falls from the great Dagoba; but it is
the "valley of the shadow of dea