AN ITINERARY OF THE VEDDA COUNTRY. 163 



differ in no respect from implements of the neolithic age found in 

 Europe. 



Although the folk of Bendiagalge have bows, they do not seem to 

 use them very much. Some of the younger men are certainly ac- 

 customed to guns, and as their stalking is magnificent they kiU a 

 good deal of game when they have a gun of their own or can borrow 

 one from the Sinhalese. But in spite of the little use of the bow, 

 the arrow is still their almost universal tool, and as there was no 

 knife in the community we had the opportunity of seeing the remark- 

 able skill with which a deer was skinned and cut up with an ayrow. 

 The Veddas certainly desired no better tool, and when we pressed a 

 butcher's knife on one of them in order to see how he would handle 

 the unaccustomed tool, it was interesting to note how slowly he 

 worked and how poor the result was compared with that he obtained 

 with the arrow, which he held just above the blade somewhat as a 

 European holds a penholder. No less astonishing was the skill 

 employed in removing the skull cap with a few strokes of the axe : 

 not only was the brain lifted out entire, but it was removed so neatly 

 and cleanly that the result was more suggestive of an anatomical 

 preparation than a piece of butcher's work. 



On our return to Ambilinne a day was devoted to a visit to a big 

 cave, MuUegamagalge, which lies less than a mile to the north of the 

 Ambilinne-Namal-oya road. The character of the scenery changes 

 some 3| miles from Ambilinne, the open park country giving place 

 to thicker jungle. About four or perhaps G.ve miles from Ambilinne 

 we loft the track and worked our way through jungle uphill for about 

 three quarters of a mile until we reached the cave situated on a rock 

 ledge. The front of the cave had been closed by a brick wall about 

 2| feet thick and about 25 yards long, the bricks being covered with 

 a stucco-like casing, apparently of rough plaster. There are two 

 doors in the wall with hard wood frames, which have been attacked 

 by wood-boring bees, and there is also an open arch with no evidence 

 of a door having been fitted to it which opens into the cave (figure 2). 

 The inclined rock which forms the roof of the cave overhangs the 

 wall by 10 feet or more, and a drip-ledge is cut out in this which at 

 one end is continuous with a second drip-ledge cut almost vertically 

 down the face of the cHflf, the two forming a system admirably 

 arranged so as to carry off to one end of the ledge the water, which, 

 even when we visited the cave after a few days of dry weather, drop- 

 ped continuously from the rock forming its roof. The under surface 

 of the highest part of the overhang of the rock is shown in figure 3, 

 but we do not feel capable of pronouncing whether the step-like 

 arrangement of the rock is due to natural planes of fission or whether 

 the rock has in part been worked smooth. A number of square 

 holes, judged to be some 9 inches deep, had been cut into the solid 

 rock of the overhang about 3 feet above the junction of the wall and 

 the rock ; three of these can be seen dimly in figure 3. 



2 A 7(12)08 



