142 3POLIA ZEYLANICA, 
NOTES. 
1. Costume of Sinhalese Ladies before the Portuguese Period.— 
What is now known in Ceylon as the Aryan dress was the costume 
of Sinhalese ladies before the arrival of the Portuguese. The adop- 
tion of Christianity and the free social intercourse which existed 
between the Portuguese and Sinhalese gentry in the sixteenth 
century led to its abandonment in the low-country, while the 
influence of the later Tamil dynasty on the Kandyan throne led 
to its modification in the Kandyan provinces. 
The Sinhalese poem, ‘‘ Selalihini Sandesa,”’ written in the reign of 
Prakrama Bahu VI., early in the fifteenth century, likens the lake 
in Cotta to a lady in the following words (Macready’s translation): 
‘« The basin there, lake Diawanta called, 
Aye represents the fair silk robe that wraps 
The lady city, with its heaving folds 
Of waves, with its long shaking girdle cloth 
Of splashing foam, with rows of lilies red 
Inwrought, and golden likeness of the swan.’’ 
Thus comments Macready :— 
“The poet likens the sheet of water in front of the city to the 
dress of women, as it then was; which consisted of a long cloth 
(often figured with devices such as the lotus and the hansa) wound 
round the body and folded thickest at the waist. One end was 
drawn up, and allowed to fall in pleats over the portion that served 
as the waist band.” 
‘ C. M. FERNANDO. 

2. Waterholes.—The low-lying flat country which lies between 
the foot of the Matale hills and Jaffna, extending to the coast 
on either side, is almost entirely dependent on artificial irrigation 
and on wells for its water supply. Before its occupation by a race 
skilled in the building of tanks it was for half the year destitute of 
water, save that to be found in a few rivers which flow throughout 
