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



At the time of Mr. Bailey's visit he found the Daladd 

 Mdligdwa — " a plain stone building without ornamentation, 

 and hardly worth describing " — " substantial and in wonder- 

 ful preservation." His description of the ruins of the 

 palace, as he found them thirty and seven years before any 

 attempt was made to restore them, is worth reproducing. 



The palace was approached by a succession of three flights 

 of steps. The first leads over the main bund — 



into what are now paddy fields, but which doubtless formed the 

 business part of the city, 



and consists of twenty-four steps with a plain balustrade. A 

 few of these were in 1850 in tolerable order. 



The entrance chiefly used now is a breach in the bund made by 

 the priest in charge of the vihare. A fine double-stone culvert 

 built through this bund, and still in use, takes off the water so enclosed 

 into the moat outside. 



The second flight of steps had almost disappeared in 1850. 



Mr. Bailey says : — 



The nature of the ground, a steep sloping bank, with frequent 

 rocks, required the erection of a mass of masonry to support it. 

 This has fallen away, and the steps* are doubtless covered by the 

 debris of the building and the vegetable deposits of ages. Here 

 and there a huge stone shows its edge ; and the course of the flight 

 is traceable by the stanchion-holes, which appear on the faces of 

 the rocks up which it led.f 



This flight opens on to a terrace, from which rises the last 

 flight. It consists of thirty-five steps, flanked with " balus- 

 trades of grotesque design and very elaborate execution.' 1 

 One side of the upper flight Bailey found entirely over- 

 turned, and the grotesque and emblematic figures which 

 formed that side of the balustrade lay half or entirely buried 

 in the ground. It was wonderful that what remained should 

 be so perfect. 



The grand entrance to the palace is now reached. 



It is impossible not to be struck with its graceful proportions. 



* Discovered by Mr. Williams to be 10 in number, 

 t Once a Weeh, I, p. 226. 



