CiiAi'. ir.] 



BINTENNE. 



421 



" to serve as a protection against lightning ; " ^ and 

 Bintenne (not Maliagam, as is generally snpposed) was 

 the Maagrammum of Ptolemy, which he describes as 

 the " metropolis " of Taprobane, " beside the great river " 

 Mahawelli-ganga. 



The ruined dagoba stands close by the pansela in wliicli 

 we were lodG:ed. It is a huo-e semicircular mound of 

 brickwork, three hundred and sixty feet in circumference, 

 and still one hundred feet high, but so much decayed 

 at the top, that its original outline is no longer ascertain- 

 able. Wlien Spilberg the Dutch admiral saw it, on liis 

 way to Kandy in 1602 ", it was comparatively perfect, 

 as white as marble, and sm-mounted by a " gilded 

 pyramid." ^ There were at that time a number of other 

 monuments, and a Buddhist monastery, the priests of 

 which Spilberg describes as moving along the streets 

 under the shade of large umbrellas borne by slaves. The 

 temples were then remarkable for the richness of their 

 decorations, but the only one remaining at the present 

 day, is a low and mean edifice of whitened mud, en- 

 closing a rude statue of Buddha, the exterior walls 

 covered with barbarous mythological drawmgs. The 

 village contains about thh-ty miserable houses, but it 

 presents one feature, which I have seen in no other 

 Kandyan hamlet, that the houses are built in a con- 

 nected hue and under one continuous roof, instead 

 of being, as in Kandyan villages generally, a mere 

 cluster of detached clweUings, concealed in a tope of 

 coco-nut and jak trees, and each constructed to secure 

 seclusion and privacy. This improvement, if it be such, 

 in Bintenne may [)robably have taken place when it ^vas 

 a mihtary station after the rebellion of 1817 ; but still 

 it is a smgular instance, and the only one I have seen, 

 of the adoption by Kandyans of the European practice of 

 building a street. 



1 Malutwanso, ch. xxxvi. p. 229. 

 For a notice of this occurrence in the 

 early history of Electricity, see (Dite, 

 Voh I. rt. IV. ch. ix. p. 500. 



2 See ante, \o\. II. Pt. Ti. ch. ii. 

 p. 35. 



^ Spilberg, Voiaqc, i^c, torn. ii. p. 

 42G. ^ 



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