35 8 Voyac/e of the Novara. 



at present carry on the greater part of the trade of the 

 island), Malays, Javanese ; then Portuguese, Dutch, British 

 of the various nationalities comprised under that title ; and, 

 lastly, Negroes from Mozambique and Madagascar, who have 

 formed alliances with the Cingalese, and are rearing a 

 numerous mixed race.* 



Deep in the interior of the island, in the province of 

 Bintang, N. E. from Kandi, and towards Trincomalee and 

 Batacalva, in holes in the earth, or under the palm-leaves, 

 reside the tribe of the Weddahs or Veddahs, the most savage 

 race in the island, traditionally said to be the aborigines proper, 

 who go about naked, with the exception of a girdle round the 

 loins, and use only bows and javelins, which however they 

 manufacture and handle with great dexterity. 



According to one of the various Cingalese traditions, these 

 Weddahs are the descendants of a very bloodthirsty, cannibal 

 monarch, who, deposed by his people, was only permitted the 



* "\Miat is related by various writers of tlie practice of " running a muck " (a 

 custom that seems to recal tlie fi-iglitful blood-feuds of tlie Corsicans), long supposed 

 to be peculiar to Ceylon, in wliich a Malay thii'sting for revenge, and ai'med w-ith a 

 naked " kreese," or dagger, rusbes tbrougb tlie streets like a madman, yelling 

 "Amock, Amock" (kill, kill), and runs tbe fearful weapon through the body of the 

 very first person he meets, — seems to be founded on a mistake. No one could give 

 us any particulars on the subject from personal obsen'ation. Sir Emerson Tennant 

 too, in his work on Ceylon, passes over this custom of " ninning a muck," witliout 

 a syllable of mention. Evidently the custom is not natiu-ahzed in tliis ishmd. It 

 now prevails among the Malays of the Simda archipelago, wlule in Ceylon no 

 instance has occurred ^vithin the memory of man. That tliis tendency to murder is 

 caused by the use of opium likemse appears improbable. Cra^'ford, in his most 

 excellent descriptive dictionary of the Indian islands, speaking of " running a 

 muck," pretends it results frequently from a monomania taking this pai-ticular 

 form, and originating in disorders of the digestive organs. 



