It has already been shown[1] that the natives of Ceylon received their earliest instruction in engineering from the Brahmans, who attached themselves to the followers of Wijayo and his immediate successors.[2] But whilst astonished at the vastness of conception observable in the works executed at this early period, we are equally struck by the extreme simplicity of the means employed by their designers for carrying their plans into execution; and the absence of all ingenious expedients for husbanding or effectively applying manual labour.  The earth which forms their prodigious embankments was carried in baskets[3] by the labourers, in the same primitive fashion which prevails to the present day.  Stones were detached in the quarry by the slow and laborious process of wedging, of which they still exhibit the traces; and those intended for prominent positions were carefully dressed with iron tools.  For moving them no mechanical contrivances were resorted to[4], and it can only have been by animal power, aided by ropes and rollers, that vast blocks like the great tablet at Pollanarrua were dragged to their required positions.[5]

[Footnote 1:  See Vol.  I. Part IV. chap. ii. p. 430.]

[Footnote 2:  King Pandukabhaya, B.C. 437, “built a residence for the Brahman Jotiyo, the chief engineer.”—­Mahawanso, ch. x. p. 66.]

[Footnote 3:  Mahawanso, ch. xxiii. p. 144.]

[Footnote 4:  The only instance of mechanism applied in aid of human labour is referred to in a passage of the Mahawanso, which alludes to a decree for “raising the water of the Abhaya tank by means of machinery,” in order to pour it over a dagoba during the solemnisation of a festival, B.C. 20.—­Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 211; Rajaratnacari, p. 51.]

[Footnote 5:  No document is better calculated to Impress the reader with a due appreciation of the indomitable perseverance of the Singhalese in works of engineering than the able report of Messrs. ADAMS, CHURCHILL, and BAILEY, on the great Canal from Ellahara to Gantalawa, appended to the Ceylon Calendar for 1857.]

Fortifications.—­Of military engineering the Singhalese had a very slight knowledge.  Walled towns and fortifications are frequently spoken of, but the ascertained difficulty of raising, squaring, or carrying stones, points to the inference which is justified by the expressions of the ancient chronicles, that the walls they allude to, must have been earthworks[1], and that the strength of their fortified places consisted in their inaccessibility.  The first recorded attempt at fortification was made by the Malabars in the second century before Christ for the defence of Wijitta-poora, which is described as having been secured by walls, a fosse, and a gate.[2] Elala about the same period built “thirty-two bulwarks” at Anarajapoora[3]; and Dutugaimunu, in commencing to besiege him in the city, followed his example, by throwing up a “fortification in an open plain,” at a spot well provided with wood and water.[4]