There is indeed much in the story of the ancient Buddhist Kings of Ceylon which calls up wonder and praise. They were great gentlemen. Here is a story of knightly virtue that is worth retailing. Two hundred years before our era Elala, a Malabar adventurer, invaded Ceylon, defeated and killed the reigning King Asela, and reigned for forty years over the island. At the end of that time Dutugaimunu, a prince of the old royal family, whose dream it had been from boyhood to exterminate the Malabars, raised an army against Elala and after prodigies of valour defeated and slew him. There his enmity ceased. Full of admiration for the dead usurper’s courage, and for the justice which he had shown during forty years—even though a Brahman, protecting the Buddhist priesthood—he erected a great monument on the spot where Elala died, and there it still stands a record of a true knight’s generosity. Moreover he issued a decree that even the Kings of Lanka should on nearing the monument silence the music of their processions and dismount from their litters, and this custom continued well into the nineteenth century, when the kings had long since disappeared. Could a Bayard have shown greater chivalry towards a dead enemy? There are now probably more travellers who visit Anuradhapura than there were when I was there. As for the residents, there were men who had passed the best years of their lives in Ceylon and had barely heard of it. The old city was to them as are St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London to the average West End Londoner—something so near that there is no need to hurry to go and see it. For myself, I would gladly have spent weeks among the scattered ruins, and even have gone further afield to see and learn—but time pressed and we had to hie back.