No. 33. — 1886.] THE VEDDAS OF CEYLON. 



355 



extensive forests, interspersed with low hills. Sir E. Ten- 

 nent* paints in rich colours this beautiful country, which 

 he passed through on his way from Bintenna to Batticaloa on 

 the east coast. This is the real home of the Veddas. Knoxf 

 also describes very distinctly this country, — this land of 

 Bintenna, — which he surveyed from afar on the tops of the 

 mountains. He says : " It seems to be smooth land, and not 

 much hilly ; the great river runneth through the midst of it. 

 It is all over covered with mighty woods and abundance of 

 deer ; but much subject to dry weather and sickness. In 

 these woods is a sort of wild people inhabiting." The wild 

 Veddas live here in perfect isolation, as well from their allo- 

 phylen neighbours as their more civilised tribal brethren, 

 without fixed abodes, but yet upon their own recognised 

 lands, mostly in small groups, or simply in families. Rarely 

 do they venture beyond their own boundaries, and then only 

 for the purpose of exchanging honey, wax, skins, or venison 

 for tools of iron (axes, arrow-points, &c). For the most part 

 they shrink timidly back from all human contact, and even 

 their small commerce was not at first openly pursued, J but in 



* Tennent, I. c, II., p. 451. 

 f Knox, I. c, p. 9. 



I Mr. Hartshorne asserts that this mysterious way which Sir Emerson 

 Tennent made so much of is no longer carried on. The first mention of it 

 is by Knox. Earlier authors, in speaking of the secret trade, refer, as far as 

 I can see, not merely to the Veddas, but to the Ceylonese in general. It 

 does not appear to me at all certain that the passage in Pliny (Natur. Hist. 

 Lib., VI., 24), in spite of Sir E. Tennent's plea (I. c, I., p. 571, 

 note 1), refers to the Ceylonese, as it does not describe the trade in the 

 interior of the country, but outside, near the boundary of the Serae, — far 

 away upon the continent, — exhibiting it more as a peculiarity of the Serae 

 than of the Ceylonese. The interpretation put upon the passage is of 

 little importance, however, as Chinese authors — for instance. Fa Hiaen — 

 mention this kind of secret trade in the third century as carried on upon 

 the Island itself. That Pliny at the same time refers to the worship of 

 demons certainly would seem to point to the Veddas, but on the other 

 hand a report by the Arabic geographer Albyruni (1030 A. d.) shows 

 that in his time the secret trade was pursued along the coast. We 

 should therefore have to assume that the Veddas carried on a coast trade 

 in the eleventh century, which is not probable. 



