“Besides having learnt from tradition and ancient documents, the writer has seen the discovery of the tomb of a prince, in which these articles were found, with a plate of gold, stating the name of the prince, his age, death, etc., which he had the pleasure to transcribe; the characters were in a different form from those now used in the same language, and hardly intelligible. “The writer had also the pleasure of exploring the ruins of a very lofty Dagob that stood opposite to the establishment of the Church Missionaries in Ceylon. It was found to have been the tomb of a monarch, and had the appearance of having been robbed of the wealth it very likely contained, upwards of a century ago, as the trees that were growing on it indicated. A large quantity of ancient coins, and metal of different kinds, melted into various shapes (perhaps with burning of the corpse), were, however, collected. “Ceylon contains many ancient pyramids of the kind in a preserved state, and protected by the people, which are supposed to contain much wealth, but the superstitious do not dare to explore, and others fear the laws, which will permit violence to no man’s feelings.”[423] Having before shown how that the religion of the ancients was interwoven with their funeral observances, this ocular testimony was alone requisite to gain credence for my proofs. I can still further adduce the authority of Dr. Hurd,[424] to show that the Gaurs of India, to this day, make use of the _Round Towers_[425] in their neighbourhood as places of burial, lifting up the dead bodies to the elevated door by means of ladders and pulleys. None of those three writers have attempted anything more than a statement of the actualities, therefore will I be excused if, in addition to what has been already detailed, I observe that, sublime and philosophic as was the intent of the _phallic_ configuration of those edifices, applied to _religion_, it was incomparably more so, considered in reference to _sepulture_; for while, in the former, it merely typified the progress of _generation_ and _vitality_, in the latter it suggested the more ennobling hope of a future _renascence_ and a _resurrection_. That the reader, now aware of the “_secret_” which directed the form and elevation of our Sabian Towers, should not be surprised at the affinity which I have before pointed out between them and the two “pillars” which stood at the door of Solomon’s temple,[426] I shall tell him that the whole internal construction of this latter edifice, as well as those outer and partial ornaments, bore direct relation to the anatomical organism of man himself.