108 JOURNAL R. A. S. CEYLON. [Vol, VII., Ft. IL 



" The herd of deer, startled at the sight of the crowd of Veddas 

 {Sahara sen) in that forest, seem to eat the blood-like tender buds in 

 anger as resembling their (Veddas') lips ; the female swan enters 

 the forest tank o'ercome by their (speed of) movement ; the pea-hen 

 seems to cry (as if complaining that) their locks are blue."* — II. C 

 P. B., Hon. Sec.'] 



No. 4. 



" The bare assertion by a naked savage in the rudest state of 

 barbarism, that he is the descendant of Kings, seems, at first, a sheer 

 a' surdity, though it naturally suggests the inquiry how the claim 

 to so ambitious an origin could have arisen, and, having arisen, how 

 it should be so pertinaciously adhered to by tribes unknown to each 

 other. 



" The custom which sanctions such revolting marriages [between 

 brothers and younger sisters] seems, at first sight, simply a proof of 

 the extreme depth of barbarism to which the race has sunk. But 

 when we consider the tradition in connection with the fact that the 

 Sinhalese invariably admit the Veddds to be of the highest caste, 

 while they in turn affect to look down upon the Sinhalese ; and 

 when we regard the custom in connection with the story of the 

 marriage of the son and daughter of Vijayo, himself the offspring of 

 a similar connection ; when we read the legend of their flight from 

 both father's and mother's kindred to the forests, where, resuming 

 the w T ild life of their maternal ancestors, they founded a wild race ; 

 when we find even yet the district which tradition gives as their 

 refuge, still called by a name indicative of their former existence in it, 

 and still abounding with traces of them — though not a Vedda can be 

 remembered there ; and when we can trace among the Veddas of the 

 present day the remains of Brahmanism — Vijayo's creed — inter- 

 mingled with the Nat worship, practised by Kuveni's nation ; and 

 when there are still in use among them names of Sanskrit affinity, 

 common in India, though, rare among themselves, unknown in Ceylon ; 



* /. e., that she has been robbed of the blueness of her own plumage by 

 the peacock's feathers tied up with their hair. 



