[Footnote 1:  These rest-houses, like the Choultries of India, were constructed by private liberality along all the leading highways and forest roads.  “Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men.”—­Jer. ix. 2.]

[Footnote 2:  Rock inscription at Pollanarrua, A.D. 1187.]

[Footnote 3:  Rajaratnacari, p. 39; Mahawanso, ch. x. p. 67; HARDY’S Eastern Monachism, p. 485.]

[Footnote 4:  Mahawanso, ch. lxviii.  UPHAM’S version, vol. i. p. 246.]

[Footnote 5:  Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii. p. 249.]

[Footnote 6:  Ibid., p. 244, 245.]

[Footnote 7:  Ibid., ch. xxiii. p. 139.]

[Footnote 8:  Ibid., ch. xxviii. p. 170; ch. xxxix. p. 214.]

The Lankawistariyaye, or “Ceylon Illustrated,” a Singhalese work of the 7th century, gives a geographical summary of the three great divisions of the island, Rohuna, Maya, and Pihiti, and dwells with obvious satisfaction on the description of the capital of that period.  The details correspond so exactly with another fragment of a native author, quoted by Colonel Forbes[1], that both seem to have been written at one and the same period; they each describe the “temples and palaces, whose golden pinnacles glitter in the sky, the streets spanned by arches bearing flags, the side ways strewn with black sand, and the middle sprinkled with white, and on either side vessels containing flowers, and niches with statues holding lamps.  There are multitudes of men armed with swords, and bows and arrows.  Elephants, horses, carts, and myriads of people pass and repass, jugglers, dancers, and musicians of all nations, with chank shells and other instruments ornamented with gold.  The distance from the principal gate to the south gate, is four gows; and the same from the north to the south gate.  The principal streets are Moon Street, Great King Street, Hinguruwak, and Mahawelli Streets,—­the first containing eleven thousand houses, many of them two stories in height.  The smaller streets are innumerable.  The palace has large ranges of buildings, some of them two and three stories high, and its subterranean apartments are of great extent.”

[Footnote 1:  Eleven Years in Ceylon, vol. i. p. 235.  But there is so close a resemblance in each author to the description of the ancient capital of the kings of Ayoudhya (Oude) that both seem to have been copied from that portion of the Ramayana.  See the passage quoted in Mrs. Spier’s Life in Ancient India, ch. iv. p. 99.]

The native descriptions of Anarajapoora, in the 7th century, are corroborated by the testimony of the foreign travellers who visited it about the same period.  Fa Hian says, “The city is the residence of many magistrates, grandees, and foreign merchants; the mansions beautiful, the public buildings richly adorned, the streets and highways straight and level, and houses for preaching built at every thoroughfare."[1] The Leang-shu, a Chinese history of the Leang Dynasty, written between A.D. 507-509, describing the cities of Ceylon at that period, says, “The houses had upper stories, the walls were built of brick, and secured by double gates."[2]