STONE AGES OF CEYLON. 89 
Out of tune with their environment, out of time with their 
era, they were doomed to extinction. The Veddas, we are 
told by those who knew them, did not laugh or sing, “ but for 
amusement they would toss leaves in the air, in order to 
watch how these would flutter to the ground.’’* ‘This is, 
indeed, a sad picture. 
Man’s innermost being is mirrored in nature, and so perhaps 
the Vedda saw (albeit subconsciously) little but his own sorry 
heart expressed in forest and dell, in the running waters, and 
the pleasant glades of Uva. And he must have known, if 
indeed, he cared to know, that the days of his pilgrimage were 
few ; that ere long he and his kind must pass away for ever. 
Perhaps he was glad of it, for to those who fall short in com- 
pliance with the demands of life there is a welcome in oblivion. 
The brothers Sarasin say (loc. cit.) that the Veddas must 
represent the few remnants of the aborigines of the Island, 
who were met with by the Sinhalese on their first arrival, and 
were called by them Yakkas, according to the old tradition 
preserved in the Mahawansa. If this were true, it 7s necessary 
to presume that these aborigines were living in the Stone Age 
at the time. . . . (the italics are mine). Why should it 
be necessary to presume any such thing? That the Veddas 
and Yakkas were one is probable enough ; but the authoritative 
statements of anthropology and history in so far as they 
prove anything at all go to show that the Veddas, as a race, 
have known better and kindlier days. Moreover, we are 
told by the same authorities that the Veddas were an older 
stone-age people, and, as I hope to show, the Paleolithic 
period, in Ceylon takes us back many thousands of centuries, 
to a time when the geography of the land was different, and 
to days before the modern races of mankind had yet emerged. 
Twice on one page the brothers Sarasin find it expedient to 
insist that the autochthony of the Vedda “‘is a proved fact,” 
and their evidence for this statement is the occurrence of 
stone tools under the floors of Vedda caves and in the soil of 
the patanas. I submit that the autochthony of the Veddas 
is not a proved fact, and further, that it is not even probable. 

» * Lewis, I’. : “* Notes on an Exploration in eastern Uva and southern 
Panama Pattu.”” (Jour.C. B., R.A.S., Vol. XIIT., No. 67, 1914, p. 285.) 
