The Ethnology of India. 131 



people and language is " Arabee," but I have been unable to trace 

 the origin or derivation of that name. There are some vague tradi- 

 tions of former Arab conquest in those parts, but I have not been 

 able to connect them with the Canarese name. The language is 

 certainly, like the other languages of the South of India, Dravidian 

 with Sanscrit super-imposed, but it is an undoubted fact (as we shall 

 see when we come to the Western Coast) that a succession of immi- 

 grations has occurred there, and one of them seems to a considerable 

 extent to have flowed over into the Canarese country. Perhaps still 

 more ancient immigrations may have flowed farther, and it might be 

 well worth while minutely to inquire whether any Himyaritic or 

 Egyptian importations can be traced in the Canarese tongue. 



In the Tamul country there is little suspicion of Western blood. 

 The dominant tribe is of a very decided Northern character, while 

 the mass of the lower classes is probably more aboriginal than in 

 any other part of India. Consequently most of the Tamul people 

 are small and black, and there seem to be among them frequent 

 traces of aboriginal features. 



The superior agricultural class, owning and cultivating most of the 

 land and in possession of many chiefships, &c. are the " Vellallers," 

 a people of whom their own traditions of immigration from the North, 

 coupled with their laws and institutions, leave in my mind no doubt 

 that they belong to the class of later democratic tribes. Much has 

 been done to dissolve the old communal system, but the early descrip- 

 tions of Vellaller villages, their apportionment of the lands and mode 

 of self-government are exactly such as would describe a Jat village 

 of the present day. 



The term Vellaller, like the Canarese Wokul, seems to be used to 

 express a cultivator of the soil, in fact may be translated zemindar 

 or cultivator, just as "Jat" is synonymous with zemindar in the 

 Punjab. Whether the Vellallers are directly connected with the 

 Velmas of the Telagoo country or with the Bellalla Rajas (who, 

 ruling in the Canarese country, carried their arms into the south), I 

 am unable to say. They appear to burn their dead, but are Hindus 

 of the looser sort in their religious observances, and in their rules 

 respecting marriage, &c. Like most of these tribes, they do not 

 ordinarily marry more than one wife, unless the first fails to bring 



