? EQUUS ZEYLANICUS. 265 
keepers, elephant-keepers, and charioteers), the monarch despatched 
these (maidens), bestowing presents on them. All these persons 
having embarked in a vessel, from the circumstance of great 
concourses of people landing there, the port (at which they 
debarked) obtained the name Mahatittha. 
2. (Page 53) Dewanan Piya Tissa’s chariot was sent to 
convey Mihindo to Anuradhapura :—* 
In the morning the king sent his chariot. The charioteer, who 
repaired (to Mihintalé), said unto them (the théras), ‘‘ Ascend 
the carriage that we may proceed to the town.” ‘* We will not” 
(replied the priests) “‘ use the chariot; do thou return, we shall go 
hereafter.’ Having sent away the charioteer with this message, 
these truly pious personages, who were endowed with the power 
of working miracles, rising aloft into the air, alighted in the 
eastern quarter of the city, on the site where the first dagoba 
(Thaparama) was built. 
3. (Page 91) A description of the breaking in of a horse by 
a Sinhalese boy, circ. 200 B.c. :-— 
He, leaping on the charger, pressed him into full speed in a 
ring. (The animal) presented the appearance of one continuous 
horse in every part of the circus. Poising himself by his own 
weight on the back of the flying steed, the fearless youth 
repeatedly untied and rebound his scarf. 
4. (Page 41) An incident which shows that the Yakkos kept 
horses :— 
A certain yakkhini named Cetiya} (the widow of Jutindhara, a 
yakkha, who was killed in a battle fought at Sirivatthupura), having 
the form and countenance of amare, dwelt near the marsh of Tum 
bariyangama, at the Dhumarakkha mountain. A certain person 
in the prince’s retinue having seen this beautiful (creature), white, 
with red legs, announced the circumstance to the prince, saying 
“There is a mare of such a description.” The prince set out 
with a rope to secure her. 
» From excerpt 4 we gather that the aboriginal, or at any rate 
pre-Aryan, inhabitants of the Island kept horses. 
The case of Ceylon, then, may be similar to that of America, 
where the indigenous Hquus became extinct, and was replaced 
in historical times by a modern horse of Hindu or European 
introduction. 
* Tissa reigned from 307 B.c. to 267 B.c. 
+ Who dwelt at Dhumarakkha mountain was wont to walk about 
the marsh of Tumbariyangama in the shape of a mare. 
{I am informed by Mr. Pieris that references to the horse are 
scattered through Sinhalese literature from the earliest times of the 
Portuguese period. 
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