Book excerpt: H.C.P.Bell, the first Archaeological Commissioner of Ceylon from 1890 to 1912, was also an authority on the remote Maldive Islands. Self-taught and sublimely self-confident, he began the official survey, excavation and conservation of the buried cities of Anuradhapura and Polunnaruwa and of the extraordinary rock fortress at Siguriya. His work in the Ceyolon jungles was often carried out 'single-handed', but he once declared, 'It is good to be a Head Man even in Hell'. In old age he realised his dream of proving that a Bhuddist civilisation preceded the Muslim conversion of the Maldives, and his posthoumous Monograph became 'the standard of reference for the history, archaeology and epigraphy of the Maldives for many years to come'.