b JOURNAL R. A. S, CEYLON. [EXTRA NO. 



( clothes worn by the Musalmans during the pilgrimage). Some 

 wear the turban, others supply its place with a little kerchief. 

 When any one meets the Kadhi or the preacher, he takes his gar- 

 ment off his shoulders, and uncovers his back, and so accompanies 

 the functionary till he arrives at his place of abode. Another of their 

 customs is this — when one of them marries, and goes to the house 

 of his wife, she spreads cotton cloths from the house door to that 

 of the (nuptial) chamber : on these cloths she places handfuls of 

 cowries on the right and left of the path he has to follow, while 

 she herself stands awaiting him at the door of the apartment. On 

 his arrival she throws over his feet a cloth which his attendants 

 take up. If it is the wife* who goes to the husband's house, that 

 house is hung with cloths, and cowries are placed thereon : and the 

 woman on her arrival throws the cloth over his feet. And this is 

 also the custom of the islanders when they salute the sovereign, 

 they must without fail be provided with a piece of cloth to cast 

 down at the moment, as we shall hereafter describe. 



Their buildings are of woodf and they take care to raise the 

 floor of their houses some height above the ground, by way of 

 precaution against damp, for the soil of their islands is damp. 

 This is the method they adopt : they cut the stones, each of 

 which is of two or three cubits long, and place them in piles 

 then they lay across these beams of the coco-tree, and afterwards 

 raise the walls with boards. In this work they show marvellous 

 skill. In the vestibule of the house they construct an apart- 

 ment which they call modem, % and there the master of the house 



* It appears from this passage that the two kinds of Sinhalese marriage, 

 bina and diga, were in vogue at the Maldives. [Both forms are said to be recog- 

 nised still — B. 



f Even at the present day there is but one stone or brick built private 

 house at Male (Sultan's Island)— B. 



% Mdlem. " A partition near the middle divides the house into two 

 rooms, one of which is private, and the other open to all visitors." (Trans. Bom- 

 bay Geographical Society, 1836-8, p. 59.) The public room is called beru-ge and 

 the private or women's apartment eteri-ge, or in the Southern Alois utdval-(je—B> 



