led a _Caryota_ on the authority of Dr.
GARDNER, and of MOON'S _Catalogue_; but I have been informed by Dr.
HOOKER and Mr. THWAITES that it is an _Areca_. The natives identify it
with the Caryota, and call it the "katu-kittul."]

A climbing plant, the "Kudu-miris" of the Singhalese[1], very common in
the hill jungles, with a diameter of three or four inches, is thickly
studded with knobs about half an inch high, and from the extremity of
each a thorn protrudes, as large and sharp as the bill of a
sparrow-hawk. It has been the custom of the Singhalese from time
immemorial, to employ the thorny trees of their forests in the
construction of defences against their enemies. The _Mahawanso_ relates,
that in the civil wars, in the reign of Prakrama-bahu in the twelfth
century, the inhabitants of the southern portion of the island
intrenched themselves against his forces behind moats filled with
thorns.[2] And at an earlier period, during the contest of Dutugaimunu
with Elala, the same authority states, that a town which he was about to
attack was "surrounded on all sides by the thorny _Dadambo creeper_
(probably Toddalia aculeata), within which was a triple hue of
fortifications, with one gate of difficult access."[3]

[Footnote 1: Toddalia aculeata.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_ ch. lxxiv.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_ ch. xxv.]

During the existence of the Kandyan kingdom as an independent state,
before its conquest by the British, the frontier forests were so
thickened and defended by dense plantations of these thorny palms and
climbers at different points, as to exhibit a natural fortification
impregnable to the feeble tribes on the other side, and at each pass
which led to the level country, movable gates, formed of the same
formidable thorny beams, were suspended as an ample security against the
incursions of the naked and timid lowlanders.[1]

[Footnote 1: The kings of Kandy maintained a regulation "that no one; on
pain of death, should presume to cut a road through the forest wider
than was sufficient for one person to pass."--WOLF'S _Life and
Adventures_, p. 308.]

The pasture grounds throughout the vicinity of Jaffna abound in a low
shrub called the Buffalo-thorn[1], the black twigs of which are beset at
every joint by a pair of thorns, set opposite each other like the horns
of an ox, as sharp as a needle, from two to three inches in length, and
thicker at the base than the stem they grow on.

[Footnote 1: _Acaci