ed character and determination; that they were
builders is shown by the erection of splendid edifices at an early date,
and after the arrival of the royal Buddhist missionary, Mahindo (son of
an Indian king), 306 B.C., fine dagobas and monasteries were added, each
successive ruler seeming ambitious to excel his predecessor.

Anuradhapura was the first capital, but owing to many vicissitudes and
several invasions of the Malabars of Southern India, the capital was
moved many times, Kandy being the sixth; it preceded Cotta, near
Colombo, the latter being the present capital. In 1532, on the landing
of the Portuguese at Colombo, the last blow was struck, and soon the
great cities of the Empire were deserted and left in the hands of
foreigners. The best dagobas were crumbling, immense tanks broken, and
general devastation succeeded where splendor had long reigned. The
annals of these centuries, the recital of the achievements and the
failures of the various rulers, read like a romance, and it seems sad
that a people thus endowed could not have retained their character and
independence, although under English rule the island seems prosperous.

The first mention of Kandy is at the beginning of the fourteenth
century, when a temple was built to receive the sacred tooth and other
ruins, the possession of which made it an important centre of the
Buddhist religion and eventually a royal residence; it became the
capital of the island in 1592. From that time until the final
establishment of the English rule in 1803, it was repeatedly captured
and burned by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English; it
consequently presents no architectural monuments nor any pretension to
antiquity.

But it has a better claim to the remembrance of posterity in the fact
that for three hundred years it was the centre of the national movement
to resist the aggressions of the foreigner. After the British occupation
the King was allowed some authority, but owing to certain indignities
offered to English subjects, war was declared in 1815, the King taken
prisoner and transported to India, where he died in 1832. Ceylon has
since been an English colony. The Kandyans are brave and fearless in
appearance; they never wear the Cingalese comb, as this is a badge of
the low country. The women dress differently from those in India.

The city presents a wide field of interest for the archaeologist, and
incidentally for the tourist. We were to have a new experien