Bridges.—­As to bridges, Ceylon had none till the end of the 13th century[1], and Turnour conjectures that even then they were only formed of timber, like the Pons Sublidus at Rome.  At a later period stone pillars were used in pairs, on which beams or slabs were horizontally rested, in order to form a roadway [2], in the same manner that Herodotus describes the most ancient bridge on record, which was constructed by Queen Nitocris, at Babylon; the planks being laid during the day and lifted again at night, for the security of the city.[3] The principle of the arch appears never to have been employed in bridge building.  Ferries, and the taxes on crossing by them, are alluded to down to a very late period amongst other sources of revenue.[4]

[Footnote 1:  TURNOUR’S Epitome and Notes, p. 72.  Major Forbes says, however, there is reason to believe that the remains of stone piers across the Kalawa-oya, on the line between Kornegalle and Anarajapoora, are the ruins of the bridge erected by King Maha Sen, A.D. 301.]

[Footnote 2:  Mahawanso, ch. lxxxv.  UPHAM’S translation, pp. 340,349; Rajaratnacari, pp. 104, 131.  The bridge on the Wanny hereafter described (see vol. ii p. 474) was thus constructed.]

[Footnote 3:  Herodotus, i. 186.]

[Footnote 4:  Mahawanso, ch. xxiii. pp. 136, 138, ch. xxv. p. 150; Rajaratnacari, p. 112.]

In forming the bunds of their reservoirs and of the stone dams which they drew across the rivers that were to supply them with water, they were accustomed, with incredible toil, infinitely increased by the imperfection of tools and implements, to work a raised moulding in front of the blocks of stone, so that each course was retained in position, not alone by its own weight, but by the difficulty of forcing it forward by pressure from behind.

The conduits by which the accumulated waters were distributed, required to be constructed under the bed of the lake, so that the egress should be certain and equal[1], as long as any water remained in the tank.  To effect this, they were cut in many instances through solid granite; and their ruins present singular illustrations of determined perseverance, undeterred by the most discouraging difficulties, and unrelieved by the slightest appliance of ingenuity to diminish the toil of excavation.

[Footnote 1:  The Lake of Albano presents an example of a conduit or “emissary” of this peculiar construction to draw off the water.  It is upwards of 6000 feet in length.  A similar emissary serves a like purpose at Lake Nemi.]

It cannot but exalt our opinion of a people, to find that, under disadvantages so signal, they were capable of forming such a work as the Kalaweva tank, between Anarajapoora and Dambool, which TURNOUR justly says, is the greatest of the ancient works in Ceylon.  This enormous reservoir was forty miles in circumference, with an embankment twelve miles in extent, and the spill-water, ineffectual for the purpose designed, is “one of the most stupendous monuments of misapplied human labour."[1]