31 



examples of men far exceeding the average height, and by skulk 

 having a capacity of 1,614 and 1,420 cub. cm. It might follow 

 from this that the Sinhalese are civilized Veddas who simply 

 owe the superiority of their physical development to their better 

 life. But the Vedda race is still, as it was in ancient days, 

 among the smallest of the living human tribes. Similar 

 dwarfish tribes are scattered all over India, which possibly was 

 in ancient times inhabited by tribes which had a close rela- 

 tionship to these. And with just as little propriety as the 

 present Hindoos can be said to have sprung and progressively 

 developed from these more or less dwarfish aborigines, does 

 such a kind of explanation suit the connection of the Veddas 

 with the Sinhalese. As they have not descended from the 

 Sinhalese by regressive degeneration, neither surely have they 

 been transformed by progressive evolution into Sinhalese. 

 That no such affinity exists is proved chiefly by the form of the 

 face, to which all observers testify. All descriptions, and history 

 confirmed by the Ramayana, as well as the Wijeyan legend, 

 shew that there can be no doubt that the Sinhalese face is an 

 importation from the Aryan province of the Indian continent : 

 while, directly to the contrary, all observers ascribe to the 

 Vedda face a foreign and, very frequently, Dravidian type. It 

 becomes clear then that genealogical investigation must make 

 the face a main object of study. 



If the view be correct that the Veddas are a pure, 'the Sinha- 

 lese a mixed race, we may then leave the question out of con- 

 sideration as to how far soil, food, and climate, and the like may 

 have operated to determine the formation of the body, or the 

 size of the head, or to transform the character of the hair from 

 that of wooly-haired blacks like Negritoes, &c, to what we now 

 find it. Although facts bearing more or less plausibly on this 

 question may not be wanting, we should hesitate before applying 

 arguments gathered from the history of domesticated animals 

 to the savage inhabitants of Ceylon, at any rate until it is 

 proved that the latter actually possessed in earlier times different 

 physical characteristics. The present state of the hair plainly 

 corresponds to the description given by Palladius, and must, 

 therefore, have been just as it now is for at least fifteen 

 hundred years. 



