Some idea of the amount of population may be arrived at, when we consider the present density of inhabitants in all Indian houses and towns.

Millions must, therefore, have streamed from the gates of a city to which our modern London was comparatively a village.
There is a degree of sameness in the ruins of all the ancient cities of Ceylon which renders a description tedious.

Those of "Anaradupoora" are the largest in extent, and the buildings appear to have been more lofty, the great dagoba having exceeded four hundred feet in height; but the ruins do not exhibit the same "finish" in the style of architecture which is seen in the remains of other towns.
Among these, "Topare," anciently called "Pollanarua," stands foremost.
This city appears to have been laid out with a degree of taste which would have done credit to our modern towns.
Before its principal gate stretched a beautiful lake of about fifteen miles circumference (now only nine).

The approach to this gate was by a broad road, upon the top of a stone causeway, of between two and three miles in length, which formed a massive dam to the waters of the lake which washed its base.

To the right of this dam stretched many miles of cultivation; to the left, on the farther shores of the lake, lay park-like grass-lands, studded with forest trees, some of whose mighty descendants still exist in the noble "tamarind," rising above all others.