3GU 



CHAP. VII. 



PATE OP THE ABOKIGINES. 



IT has already Men shown, that devotion and policy coin- B.C. 

 bined to accelerate the progress of social improvement 104> 

 in Ceylon, and that before the close of the third century of 

 the Christian era, the portion of the island to the north of 

 the Kandyan mountains contained numerous cities and 

 villages, adorned with temples and dagobas, and seated 

 in the midst of highly cultivated fields. The face of the 

 countiy exhibited broad expanses of rice land, irri- 

 gated by artificial lakes, and canals of proportionate 

 magnitude, and thus the waters from the rivers, which 

 would otherwise have flowed idly to the sea, were 

 diverted inland in all directions to fertilise the fields 

 of the interior. 1 



In the formation of these prodigious tanks, the 

 chief labour employed was that of the aboriginal in- 

 habitants, the Yakkhos and Nagas, directed by the 

 science and skill of the conquerors. . Their contribu- 

 tions of work, though in the instance of the Bud- 

 dhist converts they may have been to some extent 

 voluntary, were, in general, the result of compulsion. 2 

 Like the Israelites under the Egyptians, the aborigines 

 were ordered, to make bricks 3 for the stupendous 

 dagobas erected by their masters 4 ; and eight hundred 

 years after the subjugation of the island, the Eajavali 

 describes vast reservoirs and appliances for irriga- 

 tion, as being constructed by the forced labour of the 



1 Mahaicanso, ch. xxxv. xxxvii. 



* In some instances the soldiers of 

 the king were employed in forming 

 works of irrigation, 



VOL. I. B B 



Mahawanso, ch. xxxviii. 

 Ibid., ch. xxvii. 



