"Some were built in the level country, and others among the hills; many still remain, but the greater number are in ruins and quite useless. The engineers who built them became famous, and in the eighth century the Rajah of Cashmere sent to Ceylon for engineers to construct tanks for him.
TANK SCENE IN CEYLON.
"The largest of these works in Ceylon is the great tank of Kalewera, which was built 1400 years ago. It is now in ruins and useless, but enough of it remains to show what it was originally; it is supposed to have been forty miles in circumference, and had an embankment of stone twelve miles long. There was another tank twenty miles in circumference, which was formed by damming a small stream with an embankment nearly two miles long and sixty feet wide; but, like most of the others, it is now useless.
"The Government has recently expended a great deal of money in repairing some of the ancient tanks. In 1867 they restored the old regulations of the kings of Ceylon relative to the use of water, the preservation of the embankments, and the settlement of disputes that are liable to arise. The English law-makers who examined these regulations said it would be very difficult to improve upon them; and as they were suited to the wants and habits of the natives, they were re-enacted in a body.
"So much for the tanks of Ceylon. Another novelty that we might enjoy in the journey to the coast would be the possible sight of a troop of wild elephants, as we should go through the region over which these great animals wander."
