46G 



SCIENCES AND SOCIAL AETS. 



[Pakt IV. 



rounded it by a rampart, the figures of lions witli wliicli 

 he decorated it, obtained for it the name of Siliagiri, 

 the "Lion-rock." But the real defences of Sigiri were 

 its precipitous chffs, and its naturally scarped walls, 

 which it was not necessary to strengthen by any artificial 

 structures. 



Their rocky hills, and the almost impenetrable forests 

 which enveloped them, were in every age the chief 

 security of the Singhalese ; and so late as the 12th 

 century, the inscription engraved on the rock at 

 Dambool, in describing the strength of the national 

 defences under the King Kirti Nissanga, enumerates 

 them as " strongholds in the midst of forests, and those 

 upon steep hills, and the fastnesses surrounded by 

 water." ^ 



Thorn-gates. — The device, retained down to the 

 period of the capture of Kandy by the British, when 

 the passes into the hill country were defended by thick 

 plantations of formidable thorny trees, appears to have 

 prevailed in the earhest times. The protection of Ma- 

 helo, a town assailed by Dutugaimunu, B.C. 162, consist- 

 ing in its being " surrounded on all sides with the thorny 

 dadamho creeper, within which was a triple hne of 

 fortifications." '"^ 



Bridges. — As to bridges, Ceylon had none till the 

 end of the 13th century^, and Turnour conjectures 

 that even then they were only formed of timber, 

 like the Pons Sublicius at Eome. At a later period stone 



1 TiTR^rotrR's Epitome and A2)pen- 

 dir, p. 95. 



2 3Iahaivmiso, eh. xxv. p. 153. 

 When Albuquerque attacked Ma- 

 lacca in A.D. 1511, the chief who 

 defended the place "covered the 

 streets with poisoned thorns, to gore 

 the Portuguese coming in." Fakia 

 Y SoTJZA, vol. i. p. 180. Valentyn, 

 in speaking of the dominions of the 

 King of Kandy during the Dutch 

 occupation of the Low Country, de- 

 scribes the density of the forests, 

 *' which not only serve to divide the 



earldoms one from another, but, above 

 all, tend to the fortification of the 

 country, on which accovmt no one 

 dare, on pain of death, to thin or root 

 out a tree, more than to permit a 

 passage for one man at a time, it 

 being impossible to pass through the 

 rest thereof " — Valenxyn, Oud en 

 Nieinv Oost-Indien, Sfc, cli. i. p. 22, 

 Knox gives a curious account of 

 these " thorn-gates." (Part ii. ch. vi. 

 p. 45.) 



^ TiTEisroini's Epitoine and Notes, 

 p. 72. Major Forbes says, however^ 



