1^0. 55 — 1904:.] ALAKESWARA : HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 307 
ruthlessly torn out, and do duty as doorposts or stepping-stones in 
private houses. The pickaxe of a villager now and again throws up 
a clay pipe belonging to the system of underground pipes for supply- 
ing water to the city, and no sooner it is thrown up than it is broken. 
If effective steps are not taken to check this vandalism, there will, in 
a short time, be nothing left from which, as I have said before, even to 
trace the ground plan of the old capital, much less to judge of the style 
of architecture or the way that the pipes had been laid. — Observer^ 
November 9, 1900. 
Appendix H. 
Tennent mentions Gampola as the capital invested by the Chinese 
and where the king was taken. This is clearly a mistake, due to 
Tennent's insufficient acquaintance with the Siijhalese annals relating 
to the period. All the authorities point to Kotte being the scene of 
the disaster, although, so far as I am aware, there is no definite mention 
of the name of the capital anywhere. Mr. Bell first doubted the 
correctness of Tennent's view in his Kegalla Report. The Observer 
criticized the omission of any reference to the Chinese invasion, under 
the head of " Gampola" in Sir Archibald Lawrie's " Gazetteer of the 
Central Province," which gave rise to the following correspondence : — 
In explanation of the omission from the Central Province 
' Gazetteer ' of all reference to the incident of an undoubted Chinese 
invasion of Ceylon, under the head of ' Gampola,' Mr. Lawrie is good 
enough to write as follows : — 
" In la&t night's Observer you express surprise that under Gampola in 
the * Gazetteer ' I have not mentioned the investment of * Gampola ' 
by the Chinese, the taking the king a prisoner, his being taken on 
board a Chinese fleet and carried captive to China, &c. 
If such things happened (?), my opinion is that they took place at 
Kotte near the coast, and not at Gampola, which in 1408 was not (I 
think) the capital or the residence of the king. 
" The whole story is obscure, and as told by Tennent, vol. I., p. 622, 
it varies from that told on page 628. So far as I know, Tennent is 
the only author who identifies the capital of which the Chinese author 
wrote with ' Gampola.' I think he was wrong." 
It certainly seems much more likely that the Chinese invaders 
should have defeated and captured the king near the coast at Kotte, 
than that they were able to penetrate into the then almost inaccessible 
interior and conquer the Kandyans on their own ground. Neither 
the Portuguese nor the Dutch — coming long after the Chinese — were 
able to do this, and on reflection we are inclined to adopt Mr. Lawrie's 
view. It is very strange that Tennent refrained from dwelling on the 
difficulties attending the march of a large army so far into the hill- 
country as Gampola, and that he should have so unhesitatingly fixed 
