Direction of further enquiry : the Veddas a member of the 

 prehistoric Dasuya group. — It is very certain that if we would 

 pursue the search for the origin of the Veddas genealogically, 

 we must first turn our investigations to the savage or half- 

 savage tribes of India. Every possible effort must be made to 

 enlarge the facts bearing on Indian ethnology in order to be 

 able to investigate radically the tribe of " Black-skins." Since 

 a part of the Dasuya were transferred to the Sudras, and 

 consequently included in the caste system of the Hindoos— 

 as the Veddas in that of the Sinhalese — it is not possible to 

 bring to a conclusion the physical anthropology of the Hindoos 

 and the Sinhalese, until we have resolved the evidently very 

 composite group of the Dasuya into its separate members* 

 One such member is plainly the tribe of the Veddas : their 

 natural isolation upon an island has perhaps tended to preserve 

 in them, more than in similar places upon the continent, their 

 peculiar character, and made them an object by which to test 

 the admissibility of the theories concerning the origin of the 

 Black Indians. May the zeal of the observer know no flagging, 

 that, before the utter extinction of this already much depleted 

 race, the language and customs, the physical and mental consti- 

 tution of the Veddas may, in all particulars, be firmly established 



