238 JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XIV. 



The inner wall has been a good deal dismantled, and 

 many of the stones removed. Thick scrub renders it 

 impossible to walk all round it ; but I examined it at several 

 points, and was assured by the villagers that it was built of 

 stone all the way round. This wall may have been about 

 8 or 10 ft. high, and was sufficiently thick to form a sub- 

 stantial fortification. The ground enclosed by this wall 

 must have formed the precincts of the royal palace and 

 the temples attached to it. 



The modern pansala is on the level ground within this 

 inner wall, but its pilima-ge is a cave in the face of the 

 rock between the two walls. 



The outer wall, which is still known by the villagers as 

 the kotu-bemma, is about 120 yards from the inner one, and 

 the inhabitants of the city doubtless lived in the space 

 between the two, which is now partly occupied by some 

 small paddy fields and partly overgrown with scrub. Tho 

 wall was a steep earthwork 15 ft. high, faced with bricks ; 

 the bricks are large and well made ; on the outside of it is 

 a moat about 15 yards wide, in a fair state of preservation. 



Previous writers have referred to this fortification as a 

 bund ; this is misleading. Its construction has nothing to 

 do with purposes of irrigation. The small paddy fields inside 

 it slope down towards it, and are irrigated by two diminutive 

 tanks near the inner wall. There is no trace of paddy 

 fields on the outside of it. There can be no doubt that the 

 outer wall and moat are the works referred to in the 

 Mahdwansa :*■ 



Afterwards he (Wijaya Baliu) enclosed that city (Subha Pabbata) 

 also with a high wall and moat. 



The wall is overgrown with jungle, but it is still possible 

 to walk all round the moat, except for a short distance near 

 the rock at the eastern side. 



The entrance to the city was by a fine flight of stone 

 steps leading over the earthwork, at a point in the middle of 



* LXXXVIIL, 77 (English translation, p. 306). 



