in the mountains we come upon other Dravidas, such as the 

 Kurumhars and other wild tribes of the Nilgherries, of stunted 

 stature and debased type, who, to all appearance, are essentially 

 different from the Tamils, and whose skull measurements show 

 great similarity to those of the Veddas of Ceylon, while the 

 form of their face, though differing from that in both Tamils 

 and Veddas, is not so different from the latter as to justify an 

 ethnological separation. Therefore, if one would search out 

 the connection of the Veddas, and perhaps of the Sinhalese 

 themselves, with Dra vidian India, it would be advisable to go 

 beyond the inhabitants of the coast, and bring the mountain 

 tribes into comparison. 



But even here the researches will not end ; for, according to 

 all probability, the present mountain tribes are not the real abori- 

 gines of Hindustan. We have the tradition that, together with 

 the Kurumhars, the Veddas were the oldest inhabitants of Tonda- 

 mandalam (Madras); and of them it seems was said " there were 

 then no forts, only huts ; no kings ; no religion ; no civilization ; 

 no books ; men were naked savages : no marriage institutions." 

 And we have the tales of the fight of Vishnu with fabulous 

 Assoors ; and of the war of Rama upon Rawana, the Ceylon 

 champion of the Yakkho and Rakshasas worship ; and also the 

 traditions preserved among the Hay as in Nepaul, and the 

 Wouralis of the Konkan, that their tribes emigrated from 

 Ceylon to their present mountain homes -when Rawana was 

 slain. Such traditions are, of course, of no positive value for 

 the diagnosis of the different tribes, but they at least warn us 

 not to decide as to the aboriginal races of India and Ceylon 

 simply on the ground of some crude linguistic indications, or 

 the physical characteristics of a few better known tribes. All 

 the same, we cannot avoid the conviction that the earliest 

 inhabitants of Ceylon stand in a close affinity to the aborigines 

 of India. 



Proto-Dravid.ians and Pre-Dravidians. — Whether these 

 aborigines were Proto-Dravidian, or even Pre-Dravidian tribes, 

 we cannot with certainty decide at present. When the light- 

 skinned Aryans from the Punjab invaded the land later called 

 Hindustan, they found it already in the possession of numerous 

 tribes of lt dark-skinned " people, who, in the Ve44a^ are desig- 



