Here, amid tall trees and thick undergrowth, are scattered hundreds,
nay, thousands of stone columns, huge monoliths, granite statues,
fragments of grand palaces, and elaborate public buildings, which once
adorned broad and level thoroughfares, while the surrounding country
exhibited a wide expanse of rice-fields irrigated by numberless
canals, together with all the beauty of cultivated tropical
vegetation. The early chronicles tell us of the surprising loveliness
of this region round about the ancient metropolis, the brilliancy of
its native jewels, the fertility of its carefully nurtured soil, its
magnificent palms, the abundance of its fruits, the sagacity of its
elephants, and the constant fragrance of its spice-laden atmosphere.

Anuradhapura! how little we of the nineteenth century have even heard
of its people, who built temples of stone and palaces of marble,--a
nation which lived for twenty centuries in oriental splendor; a city
which was rich, populous, and famous, long before Rome had risen to
power; a capital which achieved such ambitious architectural results
only to sink at last suddenly and mysteriously into oblivion. What the
possible purpose could have been in creating such a singular page in
the annals of history as the building and peopling of a giant
metropolis on this Indian island, whose accomplished mission
illustrates only the mutability of all terrestrial things, only that
inscrutable Wisdom which rules the universe can answer.

Except the mountain range which so nearly divides the island at its
centre, and the spurs which it throws out at intervals, there are few
elevations worthy of notice in Ceylon. One, known as Mihintale, about
a thousand feet in height, dominates the ruins of the ancient city
just described, and is so perpendicular that to reach its summit one
must avail himself of the artificial steps cut in the solid rock.
These stones, smoothed and indented by centuries of use, are said to
have been thus worn by thousands and thousands of pilgrims, who
ascended to the shrine above upon their knees. This notable hill,
which almost deserves the name of mountain, was fortified by the
aborigines in the olden time, as shown by irregular lines of
defensive works in stone, whose dismantled and disintegrated condition
testifies to their antiquity. On the summit stands a shrine, showing
that it was held to be a sacred spot from the earliest ages, probably
long before the date when the now mo