Note 1 — CHAP. VI.
Reading edition
: Mahawanso, ch. xxv. p. 153. When Albuquerque attacked Malacca in A.D. 1511, the chief who defended the place "covered the streets with poisoned thorns, to gore the Portuguese coming in" FARIA Y SOUZA, vol. i. p. 180. VALENTYN, in speaking of the dominions of the King of Kandy during the Dutch occupation of the Low Country, describes 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 account 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."—VALENTYN, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, &c., ch. i. p. 22. KNOX gives a curious account of these "thorn-gates." (Part ii. ch. vi. p. 45.)