THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
231 
judge how far they can be rendered of advantage to the 
colony. Many fabulous stories are told of the interior and 
its inhabitants, which might have indeed amused the reader, 
but which at the same time might have misled him. I 
have only advanced such facts as I either knew to be true 
from my personal knowledge, or which I found to be con- 
sistent with the opinion of the best informed. Several ad- 
ditional particulars relative to the country and manners 
of the Candians will be found in the journal of an Em- 
bassy 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 
traveller who might have obtained the permission of the 
Dutch to visit it, could not have executed his purpose 
from the jealousy 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 countrymen, or from observing the approaches 
by which an army could penetrate their mountains. If an 
European by any accident was carried into their territories, 
they took every precaution to prevent him from escaping; 
and the guards stationed every where at the approaches, 
joined to the wide and pathless woods which divide the 
interior from the coast, rendered such an attempt almost 
completely desperate. When an ambassador was sent from 
any European government to the King of Candy, he was- 
