Before proceeding to recount the intercourse of the islanders with these civilised visitors, and the grave results which followed, it will be well to cast a glance over the condition of the people during the period which preceded, and to cull from the native historians such notices of their domestic and social position as occur in passages intended by the Singhalese annalists to chronicle only those events which influenced the national worship, or the exploits of those royal personages, who earned immortality by their protection of Buddhism.