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the Singhalese formerly tilled was precipitated by the 
reckless domination of the Malabars, in the fourteenth 
and following centuries. The destruction of reservoirs and 
tanks has been ascribed to defective construction, and to the 
absence of spill-waters and other facilities for discharging 
the surplus-water during the prevalence of excessive rains ; 
but, independently of the fact that vast numbers of these 
tanks, though utterly deserted, remain, in this respect, almost 
uninjured to the present day, we have the evidence of their 
own native historians, that for upwards of fifteen centuries 
the reservoirs, when duly attended to, successfully defied all 
the dangers to be apprehended from inundation. Their 
destruction and abandonment are ascribable, not so much to 
any engineering defect, as to the disruption of the village 
communities by whom they were so long maintained. The 
ruin of a reservoir, when neglected and permitted to fall into 
decay, was speedy and inevitable ; and as the destruction of 
the village tank involved the flight of all dependent upon it, 
the water, once permitted to escape, carried pestilence and 
miasma over the plains they had previously covered with 
plenty. After such a calamity any partial return of the 
villagers, even where it was not prevented by the dread of 
malaria, would have been impracticable, for the obvious reason 
that, where the whole combined labour of the community was 
not more than sufficient to carry on the work of conservancy 
and cultivation, the diminished force of a few would have 
been utterly unavailing, either to effect the reparation of the 
water-courses, or to restore the system on which the culture 
of rice depends. Thus, the process of decay, instead of a 
gradual decline, as in other countries, became sudden and 
utter desolation in Ceylon ; ” 
The same account might be given of similar works in India 
and other parts of the world ; for, like fire, water is an excellent 
servant, but a bad master. Held under proper control and 
made to contribute to the service of man, it may be attended 
with very great advantages and benefits ; but if allowed to have 
its own way, it is frequently destructive of much that would 
otherwise contribute to the pleasure or welfare of mankind. 
It is not, however, so much with the rain of the world as 
with that of our own country that I wish now to treat. We 
have, in some parts of our islands, rain almost as great as that 
which falls in the tropical climates of the world, and we have 
in other parts not more than a sixth or eighth of the quantity 
of rain which falls in such districts ; but we have nowhere to 
suffer the annoyance and inconvenience which attend a rainless 
land, and excessive falls of rain are commonly confined to 
