TRANSACTIONS OV THE SECTIONS. 175 



The practical result of this faith was to breed contempt for violent death, and to 

 nourish a race of warriors who (like oui-selves) despised bush-fighting. 



On the Recent Discovery of a Stone Implement in the Bnch-earth of Erith, 

 Kent*. Bij Dr. J. H. Gladstone, F.R.S. 



The implement exhibited was a flint flake of vei-y regular form, ^ inches long 

 and 2 inches broad, notched at the edges apparently from use. It had a small fossil 

 Echinus at the broader end. It was picked up in the brick-earth pits at Erith, in 

 the ancient valley of tlie Thames ; but as it was found among the flints and other 

 rubbish thrown aside by the workmen, it is impossible to say whether it came from 

 the same beds that furnish the remains of the mammoth, rhinoceros, lion, &c., or 

 from some higher and more recent stratum. 



T'he Wedclas of Ceylon. 

 By Berteam F. Haetshoene, of the Ceylon Civil Service. 



The writer, after briefly referring to the accounts given by previous authors of 

 this remarkable race, detailed the results of his personal observation of their habits, 

 physiology, and language, dividing the whole tribe into the two classes of Jungle 

 Weddas and Village Weddas. The former have retained more distinctly than the 

 latter the essential characteristics of their autochthonous condition, still depending 

 for their chief means of subsistence upon their bows and arrows, and passing their 

 lives in the vast forests in the eastern part of Ceylon without any dwelling-places 

 or system of cultivation. 



Their skill in the use of the bow and the strength of theii- left arm was to be 

 noticed, as well as the absence of any stone or flint implements among them. The 

 influence of the civilized Tamil and Sinhalese races contiguous to the district which 

 they inhabit has only in a very slight degree made itself felt ; and their state of 

 barbarism is indicated by the practice of producing fii-e by means of rubbing two 

 sticks together, as well as by an almost entire absence of clothing, and the custom 

 which they observe of habitually refraining from any sort of ablution whatever. 



The copies of photogi-aphs exhibited showed them to possess features of no unin- 

 telligent type ; but they wear an expression of extreme imhappiness, and one of their 

 chief peculiarities is that they never laugh. It is probable that this circumstance 

 is due to psychological causes rather than to any physical conformation. 



Their intellectual capacity is extremely slight, and their power of memory de- 

 fective. They ai-e utterly unable to count; nor does their language contain any 

 words to denote the numerals ; and it is singular that, whilst their moral notions 

 lead them to regard theft or lying or the striking of another as an inconceivable 

 ■wrong, they are devoid of any form of rehgion, and also, apparently, of any religious 

 sentiment, except in so far as that may be inferred from their practice of ofieiing a 

 sacrifice to the spirit of one of their fellows immediately after his decease, their 

 idea of a future state being limited to the belief that they become devils after 

 death, not, however, in the sense of the Buddhist theory of metempsychosis, but 

 simply as one final and in-esistible transformation. 



The analysis of their language and of their songs or folk-lore was reserved by the 

 author for a subsequent occasion ; but he observed that their vocabulary largely 

 consisted of words derived directly from the Sinhalese, and others indicated an 

 aflinity with Pali and Sanskrit, whilst there remained a considerable residue of 

 doubtful origin. There is, however, an absence of any distinctly Dravidian ele- 

 ment, and the language appears to bear no resemblance to that spoken by the 

 Yakkas of Nipal. The author, after adverting to the danger of insisting too 

 strongly upon the inferences which may be drawn from Imguistic evidence in the 

 determination of ethnological questions, drew attention to the interesting circum- 

 stance that the Weddas are the only savage race in existence speaking an Aryan 

 language. 



* Figured and described in the 'Argonaut' for September 1875, p. 263. 



