336 ON SECLUDED TRIBES OF UNCIVILIZED MEN. 



neighbourhood of Batticalloa. They are also to be found aear Ba- 

 dulla. But in these localities they are not so wildj nor so much iso- 

 lated as in other parts. The very wildest are to be found in the dis- 

 trict of Nilgala and in the forests of Bintenne. If there be any 

 difference between the two, as Mr. Bailey thinks there is, those of 

 Nilgala are the most wild. The settled Veddahs associate with the 

 Singhalese, but do not intermarry with them. They live in huts 

 formed of boughs and bark, when caves cannot be obtained, and cul- 

 tivate small patches of ground. But their instincts appear to lead 

 them to hunting, and on this they chiefly rely for subsistence. They 

 are also fond of honey, and procure large quantities of it. Efforts 

 have been made for several years to civilize these creatures, and they 

 appear to be gradually losing their wild habits. 



Tennent draws a most deplorable picture of the whole race. He 

 states that so degraded are some of these people that it has appeared 

 doubtful in certain cases whether they possess any langnage what- 

 ever — that, on the authority of a gentleman who resided in their 

 vicinity, their dialect is incomprehensible to the Singhalese — that 

 their intercommunication is carried on by signs, grimaces, and gut- 

 tural sounds unlike words or language — that they have no marriage 

 rites — that the community is too poor to allow polygamy — that they 

 have no knowledge of a God, or of a future state — no prayers or 

 charms, no instinct of worship, except some addiction to ceremonies 

 analogous to devil-worship, in which the performer dances in front 

 of an offering of something eatable. At first he shuffles with his feet 

 to a plaintive air, and then works himself into a paroxysm. "Writing 

 of the village Veddahs, he afterwards states that *' they have no 

 games, no amusements, no music," which is extraordinary, as he has 

 just informed us previously that the less civilized, or rather totally 

 wild portion, of the race have men amongst them who can dance to 

 a plaintive air. 



Many of the above particulars are denied by Mr. Bailey, though 

 even his portrait of these outcasts is melancholy enough. He states 

 that he never knew them at a loss to convey their ideas either to 

 their own fellows, or to the Singhalese. The latter seem to compre- 

 hend their language tolerably well. As to marriage rites they have 

 something approaching to a ceremony. The man selects a present, and 

 carries it to the front of the dwelling of his intended father-in-law. 

 The object of the visit being known, the girl, if she accepts him 



