12 EASTERN HINDOOSTAN. 



A SAVAGE RACE. The CoJlsries have fire-arms, but their chief weapons are 

 'fpears of vaft length, with which they creep along the ground, 

 -and make great havoke among horfes and men ; while fome 

 are firing among the thickets, others with their long fpears 

 appear on the adjacent hills, leaping from rock to rock with 

 the agility of monkies, and with horrid fcrcams and howlings. 

 Both Poly gars and Colleries are aborigines of India, and Hindoos, 

 The Colleries pay the utmofl refpedt to their idols ; the lofs of 

 them enrages them to madnefs. A Colonel Hero?!, an indilcreet 

 officer (afterwards juflly broke) in 1755, ^n taking one of their 

 forts, carried off feveral of their facred images. In revenge, 

 they afterwards put to death every foe, Engli/Jjy or EjtgUjh-fepoy^ 

 which fell into their hands, and even women and children in 

 the paroxyfm of their fury. 



Their country is capable of cultivation, and of bearing great 

 quantities of grain, but is left wild by the favage inhabitants. 

 Their riches con lilt in Ilieep and cattle. The greater Marawar 

 is more civilized, it has numbers of weavers, who manufa<5ture 

 abundance of cotton. 



These provinces are now annexed to the great nabobfliip 

 of the Carnatic; their coafts extend only fifty miles. In the 

 middle they run eafterly, and end in a very long and narrow 

 Cape Kovei,,or poi^^j diredly facing Ceylon, terminating in the Cape Koyel, the 

 CoLisDioNYs. colis, or Coliadis infula of Dionyfus, 595. Flin. lib. vi. c. 22, 

 names it Colaicuvi promontorium, and (mis-informed) fays it is 

 four days fail to the neareft point of India. It is from this 

 lingular point that I have begun my account of the great ifland 

 of Ceylon, (fee p. 183.) the which had fo evidently formed part 

 of the continent of India, as Britain had that of France; the 



rocks 



