.--Native
Soldiers.--Christian Sects and Churches.--Roman Catholic
Church.--Expulsion of the Jesuits.

The very interesting and in many respects unique ruins of
Anuradhapura, like those pertaining to the city of Pollonarua, with
its curious and enormous mass of crumbling brick-work in the shape of
a dagoba surmounted by a temple, are supposed to have been thus
mouldering in the dust for more than six centuries. These dagobas,
doting with age, as we have shown, are relic shrines, like in purpose
to the pagodas of Burmah, which they somewhat resemble. Their
substantial outside finish must have given them very much the
appearance of being built of pure white marble. In dimensions they are
exceeded only by the pyramids of Ghizeh, but there is no genius or
architectural excellence evinced in the construction of either. Judged
by the light of our day, there is no legitimate reason for their
existence. Religious fanaticism gave birth to one, and personal pride
to the other. They neither subserve the purpose of utility nor of
beauty. As monuments of personal aggrandizement, or as individual
memorials, what total failures they have proved! Think for a single
moment of the vast contrast between either of the Egyptian pyramids,
or these bell-shaped dagobas, with their plain stuccoed coverings, and
that modern shrine and tomb combined,--the Taj Mahal of Agra. The
pyramids and dagobas are crude, barbaric embodiments of bulk and
imposing loftiness; the other is a realization in marble of a poetic
dream. The former are remarkable only for magnitude; the latter, for
its exquisite grace.

There is sufficient evidence still left us to show that the olden city
of Pollonarua was laid out in a perfectly systematic way, and built up
in the most regular manner. Its founders evidently started with a
well-perfected purpose. It was not a chance settlement of a few
cabins, which gradually increased hither and thither in various
directions until it assumed the proportions of a metropolis.
Notwithstanding the present confusion, the general features of its
topography are clearly discernible amid the mounds of mouldering
material. The main street from the principal entrance-gate continued
perfectly straight for four miles between royal palms to the opposite
extreme of the city, crossed at right angles in the centre by a
similar thoroughfare, thus forming two main streets, which terminated
at four great gates of entrance and exit to and