POLYANDRISM. 167 



Arabs, and are still strict Mohamedans. The latter 

 speak Tamul, in Avhich tongue also the Seera, an 

 heroic poem, which they are fond of reciting", is 

 written, whilst the Singhalese language is of the Pali 

 dialect. Sciences are much neglected by the natives ; 

 but they are not without artistical instincts, as their 

 temples prove, as well as many articles they manu- 

 facture. In laces and embroidery, also in carving 

 blackwood, ebony and tortoise-shell, they show con- 

 siderable taste, as they do also in the display of their 

 costume. Both men and women wear the comboy or 

 coloured cloth, put on petticoat fashion, to which the 

 women generally add a white muslin jacket, or they 

 throw one end of the comboy over the right shoulder, 

 covering their bosom, like the women of southern 

 India. Both sexes confine their long hair by a hand- 

 somely worked comb, and wear earrings and bangles, 

 but the females do not covei- themselves all over with 

 jewellery as the Hindus do. (Plate XVIII.) 



Polyandrism, although abolished some thirty years 

 ago by Sir Heniy Warde, is said still to exist in the 

 interior of Ceylon, as it is known to do amongst the 

 Buddhists of Ladakh, the Nairns of Malabar, the hill 

 tribes of the Himalaya and the Todas, the Aborigines 

 of the Nilgiris, now numbering barely a thousand 

 souls ; among the latter, according to Mr. Edwin 



