[Footnote 1:  Foe-Koue-k[)i], ch, xxxviii. p. 334.]

[Footnote 2:  Leang-shu, B, liv. p. 10.]

Carriages and Horses.—­Carriages[1] and chariots[2] are repeatedly mentioned as being driven through the principal cities, and carts and waggons were accustomed to traverse the interior of the country.[3] At the same time, the frequent allusions to the clearing of roads through the forests, on the approach of persons of distinction, serve to show that the passage of wheel carriages must have been effected with difficulty[4], along tracks prepared for the occasion, by freeing them of the jungle and brushwood.  The horse is not a native of Ceylon, and those spoken of by the ancient writers must have been imported from India and Arabia.  White horses were especially prized, and those mentioned with peculiar praises were of the “Sindhawo” breed, a term which may either imply the place whence they were brought, or the swiftness of their speed.[5] In battle the soldiers rode chargers[6], and a passage in the Mahawanso shows that they managed them by means of a rope passed through the nostril, which served as a bridle.[7] Cosmas Indicopleustes, who considered the number of horses in Ceylon in the 6th century to be a fact of sufficient importance to be recorded, adds that they were imported from Persia, and the merchants bringing them were treated with special favour and encouragement, their ships being exempted from all dues and charges.  Marco Polo found the export of horses from Aden and Ormus to India going on with activity in the 13th century.[8]

[Footnote 1:  B.C. 307, Mahawanso, ch. xiv. p. 80, 81; B.C. 204, Ib., ch. xxi. p. 128.  A carriage drawn by four horses is mentioned, B.C. 161, Mahawanso, ch. xxxi. p. 186.]

[Footnote 2:  B.C. 307, Mahawanso, ch, xv. p. 84; ch xvi. p. 103.]

[Footnote 3:  B.C. 161, “a merchant of Anarajapoora proceeded with carts to the Malaya division near Adam’s Peak to buy ginger and saffon” (Mahawanso, ch. xxviii. p. 167); and in the 3rd century after Christ a wheel chariot was driven from the capital to the Kalaweva tank twenty miles N.W. of Dambool.—­Mahawanso, ch. xxxviii. p. 260.  See ante Vol.  II. p. 445.]

[Footnote 4:  FORBES suggests that on such journeys the carriages must have been pushed by men, as horses could not possibly have drawn them in the hill country (vol. ii. p. 86).]

[Footnote 5:  Sigham, swift; dhawa, to run; Mahawanso, ch, xxiii. p. 142,186.]

[Footnote 6:  Mahawanso, ch. xxii. p. 132; ch. xxiii. 142.]

[Footnote 7:  The Prince Dutugaimunu, when securing the mare which afterwards carried him in the war against Elala, “seized her by the throat and boring her nostril with the point of his sword, secured her with his rope.”—­Mahawanso, ch. x. p. 60.]

[Footnote 8:  Marco Polo, ch. xx, s. ii,:  ch. xl.]