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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. X. 



patiently the Sinhalese generally submitted to, or accepted, 

 their domination. The policy of the people seems to have 

 been to acquiesce unresistingly in each new dispensation, 

 and to gradually absorb into the realm the novel elements so 

 introduced. The only exceptions appear to have been pro- 

 voked by extreme oppression, or by religious feelings, and 

 when thus roused, the Sinhalese turned resolutely upon their 

 foes, and drove them bodily out of the country, or 

 exterminated them. In reference to such struggles the Rev. 

 Spence Hardy says that " many a Marathon or Thermopylae 

 might have been recorded of them.'* Seeing that the 

 frequent invasions by their Tamil neighbours were the cause 

 of all the worst disasters that befel their splendid industries, 

 the persistent neglect of their national defences was the 

 more remarkable, especially as they had not a long line of 

 exposed boundary to protect, like the Chinese, but only a 

 few points of their coasts. Such blind disregard of their 

 national interests, after so many and such severe lessons, can 

 only be accounted for by the inability the race has always 

 shown for any great combination. They were ever a 

 domestic, not a political, people, and so continue to be to this 

 day. People of this disposition fall almost necessarily under 

 the subjection of any resolute power, and become the 

 servants, if not virtually the slaves, of those who wield it. 



It may here be incidentally questioned, whether the great 

 wall of China, which in modern times has been regarded as 

 an egregious folly, costly as it must have been, was not, at 

 least in the time when it was built, a more economical means 

 of defence, after all, than a standing army, which would 

 have abstracted in perpetuity so large a proportion of the 

 labour taken from the industries of the Empire. 



Seeing that history affords no direct information respect- 

 ing the ancient industries, the actual condition of the people, 

 or the national resources of the Island at the time of 

 Wijayo's conquest, all that can now be ascertained on the 

 subject must be inferred from the data afforded by the 

 authentic narratives of the events therein recorded. These 



