th" upon which that shadow falls like a
pall over the corpse of a nation.

The great Dagoba now remains a heap of mouldering brickwork, still
retaining its form, but shorn of all its beauty. The stucco covering
has almost all disappeared, leaving a patch here and there upon the
most sheltered portions of the building. Scrubby brushwood and rank
grass and lichens have for the most part covered its surface, giving it
the appearance rather of a huge mound of earth than of an ancient
building. A portion of the palace is also standing, and, although for
the most part blocked up with ruins, there is still sufficient to
denote its former importance. The bricks, or rather the tiles, of
which all the buildings are composed, are of such an imperishable
nature that they still adhere to each other in large masses in spots
where portions of the buildings have fallen.

In one portion of the ruins there are a number of beautiful fluted
columns, with carved capitals, still remaining in a perfect state.
Among these are the ruins of a large flight of steps; near them, again,
a stone-lined tank, which was evidently intended as a bath; and
everything denotes the former comfort and arrangement of a first-class
establishment. There are innumerable relics, all interesting and
worthy of individual attention, throughout the ruins over a surface of
many miles, but they are mostly overgrown with jungle or covered with
rank grass. The apparent undulations of the ground in all directions
are simply the remains of fallen streets and buildings overgrown in
like manner with tangled vegetation.

The most interesting, as being the most perfect, specimen, is the small
rock temple, which, being hewn out of the solid stone, is still in
complete preservation. This is a small chamber in the face of an
abrupt rock, which, doubtless, being partly a natural cavern, has been
enlarged to the present size by the chisel; and the entrance, which may
have been originally a small hole, has been shaped into an arched
doorway. The interior is not more than perhaps twenty-five feet by
eighteen, and is simply fitted up with an altar and the three figures
of Buddha, in the positions in which he is usually represented--the
sitting, the reclining and the standing postures.

The exterior of the temple is far more interesting. The narrow archway
is flanked on either side by two inclined planes, hewn from the face of
the rock, about eighteen feet high by twelve in wi