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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [Vol. IX. 



merchants, who settle in every trading place of the East. 

 In a very few parts only the Moors have their own villages, 

 chiefly so in the Batticaloa district, where they form about 

 one third of the inhabitants. The Afghans, Malays, Kaffirs, 

 Parsees, &c, are of no importance for our purposes. 



The two races, Sinhalese and Tamils, are not living side 

 by side in the same districts, as is often believed ; such is 

 only the case in the large towns and upon the hills, whither 

 the Tamils are imported as coolies by the planters. Generally 

 speaking, the Sinhalese inhabit the hilly zone and the 

 fertile and wet Western and Southern Provinces ; they attain 

 their greatest density, according to the census of 1881, in 

 the district of Colombo ; they are very scarce in lower Uva, 

 in the North-Central Province, and in the northern parts of 

 the Kurunegala district. 



The Tamils, on the other hand, with the exception of those 

 in the planting districts, live on the eastern coast of the Island. 

 They are numerous in the Batticaloa district, less so in the 

 district of Trincomalee, almost wanting on the coast north of 

 Trincomalee. The real centre of the Tamils, however, is the 

 densely populated Island of Jaffna, where they live to the 

 exclusion of every other race : even the ubiquitous Moor is 

 very seldom met with. Majmar and Puttalam, further on, are 

 Tamil places, and south of Negombo there is an old Tamil 

 colony, which has existed since the time of King Gaja Bahu I. 

 (113 A.D.). 



It would be erroneous to suppose that the districts of 

 Sinhalese and Tamils are adjoining each other : this is only 

 the case in very few places, as, for instance, north of Chilaw. 

 Otherwise, a broad belt of forest land separates the Sinhalese 

 countries from the Tamil ones. This belt, which is almost 

 uninhabited, and in many parts completely so, begins to the 

 east of Saffragam (Sabaragamuwa), maintains a breadth of 

 20*30 miles adjoining lower Uva, and expands to about forty 

 miles in Tamankaduwa. This separating belt increases to a 

 breadth of about sixty miles in the northern parts of the 



