Excerpt from The Lost Cities of CeylonThe ruins of Egypt have been known for centuries, but it is only in comparatively recent years the ruins of Ceylon have been unearthed. Since then numbers have been attracted by these strange and beautiful Specimens of architecture quite unlike anything found elsewhere. After the final victories of the Tamils, when the Cingalese kings were driven to their last stronghold, Kandy, which lies among the hills in the centre of the island, the jungle growth, so extraordinarily rapid in the moist atmosphere of Ceylon, sprang up in wave upon wave, engulfing in a vast green sea the sites of these ancient capitals. That such cities had existed had long been known, but knowledge of their whereabouts only remained as a tradition.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.