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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. X. 



mode of life proper to such pursuits and manner of subsis- 

 tence. In none of these races do we find cities, settled forms 

 of Government, or any approach to the conditions prevailing 

 in this Island when Wijayo arrived. All the narratives of 

 this event show that the Sinhalese Yakhos, as they were then 

 called, and as they familiarly call each other to this day, had 

 cities, Yakho capitals, social institutions, a national language, 

 and some indubitable signs of accumulated wealth. Agri- 

 culture must, therefore, have been well understood, and 

 successfully, if not quite generally practised, for it will be 

 shown in the sequel that no other supposition is compatible 

 with the circumstances narrated. Tennent supports his 

 theory that the inhabitants lived by the chase by the fact 

 that hunting was one of the amusements of the princes in 

 those days, and that royal huntsmen formed part of their 

 retinue. The same might be said, however, of the English 

 princes of to-day, and the fact seems to indicate the luxury 

 of court life, rather than that the people were reduced to 

 that primitive and precarious means of subsistence. 



Turning to the narrative of Wijayo's landing, and divest- 

 ing the substantial facts of obvious orientalisms, and the 

 heroine of supernatural powers, it becomes quite plain that 

 Kuweni, like the rest of the inhabitants, was of human flesh 

 and blood, no demon or spirit, but a real and also a very 

 fascinating lady, whose ideas, tastes, and language harmonised 

 with the princely character in which she appeared to "Wijayo. 

 Her " innumerable ornaments, lovely as Maranga, and her 

 splendid curtained bed, fragrant with incense," would indi- 

 cate, even if they were figments of the imagination, refine- 

 ments inconceivable by a Red Indian or a Vedda. Yet 

 Yakhini as she was, her charms were sufficiently real and 

 substantial, and her position high enough, to captivate Wijayo, 

 and to obtain for her the honour of becoming his wife and 

 the mother of his two children. With such credentials, her 

 discourse about other princely persons of her acquaintance 

 follows consistently and naturally, and the narrative proceeds 

 to relate that Wijayo listened to her story of a certain Yakho 



