6-26 



THE RUINED CITIES. 



[Part X. 



as the country is level, the area which its waters were 

 intended to cover would have been nearly equal to that 

 of the lake of Geneva. At the present day the bed of 

 the tank is the site of ten populous \dUages, and of 

 eight wliich are now deserted.^ Its restoration was 

 successively an object of sohcitude to the Dutch and 

 British Governments, and siu'veys were ordered at 

 various times to determine the expediency of recon- 

 structing it.^ Its history has always been a subject of 

 unsatisfied inquiry, as the national chronicles contain 

 no record of its founder. A recent discoveiy has, how- 

 ever, served to damp ahke historical and utihtarian 

 speculations; for it has been ascertained that, o^ving to 

 an error in the original levels, the canal fi^om the river, 

 instead of feeding the tank, retiu-ned its unavailing 

 waters to the channel of the Malwatte river. Hence the 

 costly embankment was an utter waste of laboui% and the 

 Singhalese historians, disheartened by the failure of the 

 attempt, appeared to have made no record of the persons 

 or the period at wdiich the abortive enterprise was im- 

 dertaken.^ 



Along this shore of the island, the' country is sultry 

 in chmate and cheary in aspect. The trees are chiefly 

 stunted acacias, the "mustard tree" of Scriptm^e, (Salva- 

 dora Persica), and the wood-apple [Feronia elejyhantum), 

 Avith a copious undergrowth of the buffalo thorn % 

 whose formidable spines exceed in diameter the branches 

 from wdiich they spring. Deer are abundant near the 

 open glades, and the rivers and tanks hterally swarm 



^ "\^'ben the tank -was surveyed bv 

 the Dutch in 1791, there were ticenft/- 

 four villages within the area of the 

 bed. 



^ Tivii'SXSD's 3Iemoir on Ceylon^ 

 Asiat. Joiini., vol. xi. p. 557. The 

 Dutch had the tank purveved in 

 1739 and in 1791. The British 

 GoveiTinient caused it to he ex- 

 amined with a view to restoration in 

 1807, and again in 1812. 



3 See mite, Vol. I. Pt. it. ch. vi. p. 



468. The people of the district told 

 the Dutch Govei-nor, Inihoff, who 

 visited the Giant's Tank in 1789, that 

 it had been commenced /o?/r hundred 

 vears before by a king who died 

 l)efore completintr it. (Ceylon Mis- 

 cellany. Cotta, 184.3, p. 4.) 

 * Acacia latromon. 



