247 
Dominions of Candy. 
informed. Several additional particulars relative to the country 
and manners of the Candians will be found in the journal of 
an embassy to the court of Candy subjoined to this volume. 
The interior of the island, owing to the jealousy of the 
Dutch, has been little explored by Europeans ; and any tra- 
veller who might have obtained the permission of the Dutch 
to visit it, could not have executed his purpose from the jea- 
lousy of the natives. Since the Candians have been driven by 
their invaders into the mountains of the interior, it has been 
their policy carefully to prevent any European from seeing 
those objects which might tempt the avarice of his country- 
men, or from observing the approaches by which an army 
could penetrate their mountains. If an European by any acci- 
dent was carried into their territories, they took every precau- 
tion to prevent him from escaping; and the guards sta- 
tioned every where at the approaches, joined to the wide and 
pathless woods which divide the interior from the coast, ren- 
dered such an attempt almost completely desperate. When an 
ambassador was sent from any European government to the 
King of Candy, he was watched with all that strictness and 
jealousy which the suspicious temper of uncivilized nations dic- 
tates ; and from an account subjoined to this volume of an 
embassy which I attended to the court of that monarch, it 
will be seen how careful the natives were to prevent strangers 
from making any observations. Mr. Boyd, who abo'Ut twenty 
years ago went on a similar embassy, was watched wdth the 
same particular circumspection ; and has therefore been able to 
add little to our stock of knowledge concerning the interior. 
The dominions of the native, prince are completely cut off 
on all sides from those of tlie Europeans by almost impene- 
