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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. IX. 



they saw us coming, began to dance and to sing, and tried to 

 tell us incredible stories. The settlement of the Veddas in 

 villages gives naturally much occasion for mixing with other 

 elements ; many Sinhalese villagers marry Vedda wives, and 

 therefore, all the intermediate types between Veddas and 

 Sinhalese are to be met with. In many villages of lower 

 Uva, where Veddas are already completely extinct, the traces 

 of old Vedda blood are easily noticed in the features and in 

 the dark colour of many a Sinhalese villager. 



Similar intermarriages, or those which happen in the 

 Sinhalese districts, are taking place on an even larger scale in 

 the Tamil countries. On the east coast, north of Batticaloa, 

 there are many villages, and Veddas have been induced to 

 settle ; and in these places the mixture of Tamils with 

 Veddas is conspicuous. In this way the Veddas will 

 disappear completely at a not very distant time ; already, 

 according to the census of 1881, there are not more than 

 2,228 individuals who still call themselves Veddas. The 

 race is not dying out, as is generally believed, but is being 

 absorbed by intermarriage with the surrounding tribes. 



Our chief object was to ascertain whether the three races 

 of Ceylon are really so different from each other that they 

 could be distinguished by anatomical characters, or whether 

 the differences between them were so insignificant that no 

 positive result could be obtained by a careful comparison. 

 A great obstacle to our purpose was necessarily the frequent 

 intermarriages of the three tribes, which often left us in 

 doubt whether the men we examined were of pure blood or 

 not. The only way to obtain a satisfactory result was there- 

 fore to collect as large a number of skulls as possible, and to 

 take measurements of numerous specimens of each race to 

 compile averages. Thus we collected nineteen skulls of 

 Veddas, fifteen of Sinhalese, and fifteen of Tamils. We dug 

 them all up ourselves, — with the exception of some Sin- 

 halese skulls, — and thus are sure that no confusion has 

 arisen. We found no time during our stay in Ceylon to 



