n, are a
group of seventeen coral islets containing a vast number of cocoanut
palms, and are rich in varied tropical vegetation. They have a
population of thirty thousand Mohammedans, ruled by an hereditary
sultan, who pays yearly tribute to the present government of Ceylon in
recognition of his dependency.

Legend informs us that two thousand years and more before Christ,
multitudes of isles were attached to the kingdom of Lanka (Ceylon),
which were suddenly overwhelmed by the sea. At the time of the great
catastrophe, it is represented that the splendid capital city of
Sri-Lanka-Pura, which stood to the westward of any part of the present
island, was engulfed, and disappeared forever. The Portuguese, on
their arrival in Ceylon in the sixteenth century, found the natives
fully believing in the traditions of its former extent, and its
partial submersion. This is duly recorded by the Portuguese writers of
that period. The substance of this legend is also to be found in the
Mahawanso, or native chronicles of the island.

So far as the flora and fauna of Ceylon are concerned, it resembles
the islands of the Malay group lying far to the eastward, much more
than it does the land which is situated so near to it at the north.
Geologists tell us that the island has for ages past been slowly
rising from the ocean level, and we know that well-preserved marine
shells are found in masses at a considerable elevation, ten miles
inland, both in the north and the south of Ceylon, and especially in
the foot-hills of the central mountain, or Kandian range, as it is
called, near Ratnapura. When we pause to consider for a moment the
possible age of these marine deposits, preconceived and popular ideas
of the time which has passed since the creation of the world are
utterly nullified. That the process of rising above sea level has been
progressing for ages is undoubtedly true, as in the instance of Norway
and Sweden, where careful measurements have been recorded, from time
to time, during a period of three hundred years, clearly demonstrating
that the land of those countries is steadily rising, while the
adjacent sea subsides. In some other instances the process is directly
reversed, the land obviously, though slowly, sinking, and the ocean
rising. This is a well-known operation, not confined to any one
portion of the globe. At the ancient town of Pozzuoli, on the shore of
the Bay of Naples, there is a solid marble pavement once belonging