348 The rock temples of Dambool, Ceylon. [April, 



outline or a well proportioned figure, we seldom see a group represented 

 without some absurdities that violate all our notions of congruity. 

 I had formerly considered the Ceylonese attempts at painting as about 

 equal to their musical performances, and I saw nothing at Dambool to 

 make me alter my opinion. We see there kings praying at the Ruan- 

 welle dagobah in Anuradhapura, (which was originally 270 feet high, 

 and stood on a square mass of building 2000 feet in circumference,) 

 whose bodies are represented as being larger than the dagobah itself, 

 and whose towering crests overtop the building before which they bow. 

 Again, in an attempt to delineate the landing of Wijeya, we have a 

 ship sailing on an ocean filled with fish as large and larger than the 

 vessel itself, and into whose enormous mouths, had the animals but 

 held them open, the luckless adventurer with all his crew might have 

 passed unwittingly until he should find out the difference between a 

 fish's stomach, and the throne which he doubtless dreamt of in Ceylon. 

 Nor is the attempt to delineate the combat between Dutu-Gaimono 

 and Ellala, the Malabar invader, which occurred in the second century 

 before Christ, much more successful as a work of art — the dart which 

 the usurper hurls at his aspiring adversary being in proportion to the 

 monarch's body what the maintop-mast of a vessel of 500 tons would 

 be to one of us. But if these paintings are ridiculous in an artistic 

 point of view, they are, on the other hand, extremely valuable as con- 

 firmations of the ancient history of Ceylon. If such an invader as 

 Wijeya never landed on its shores, whence came the record of his 

 expedition contained in the Mahawanso, the Poojavalli, the Neeka- 

 sanga, the Raja Ratnacari, and the Rajavali, or if these be all fictitious 

 whence came the paintings on the rock of Dambool, with the tradition 

 connecting the name of Wijeya with it. And so of all the rest. Yet 

 though the proofs of the truth of that history are scattered all around 

 us in the island, more especially in the region round Dambool and 

 Anuradhapura, there are those in the island itself who laugh at these 

 tales, " as old wives' fables," and there are pretended savans in 

 England who would reject them also, because they never heard of them 

 before, and therefore will not take the trouble to investigate them. 



On leaving the Maha Wihare the visitor finds little in the three 

 remaining caves to excite his wonder or admiration. They are so 

 inferior in size, and in the execution of the works of art which they 



