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JOURNAL, B.A.S, (CEYLOtf). [Vol. IX, 



this wise : they deposited their wares and rough models of the 

 things they wanted in a certain place, and returned later to 

 take away secretly the needed articles. This explains why 

 the estimates of their present number vary so much. 



Cordiner says, most indefinitely, "not many thousands 

 in number"; whilst Sir Emerson Tennent,* in the year 1859, 

 considered the estimate at that time of 8,000 an exaggerated 

 one. Mr. Bailey, in 1863, declared the number of the Veddas in 

 the district of Batticaloa to be only about 250, in Nilgala 

 72 (in 1858), and in Bintenna 364 (in 1856), — altogether only 

 about 686. Mr. Hartshorne speaks of these figures as pro- 

 bably too small ; and a communication from the Rev. Mr. 

 Gillingsf seems to corroborate this, according to which, by the 

 census of 1849, in the district of Bintenna alone there was a 

 population in all of 1,538 persons, — half-Sinhalese, half -Ved- 

 das. At any rate, from the declarations of Mr. Bailey there 

 is no question that the recruits are very small indeed, and 

 the annihilation of the entire tribe imminent. For he f oundj 

 in Nilgala among 72 persons, 50 adults and 22 children 

 (in one family of 9, and another of 8 adults, only 1 child 

 in each); and among the 50 adults but 14 over fifty years 

 of age ; a single member only seemed to be over seventy 

 years of age. Of 308 persons in Bintenna, 175 were adults 

 and 133 children ; in an isolated horde 22 adults and 4 

 children. And as if to make this more conclusive, we are 

 assured that there are no indications anywhere of the 

 practice of child-murder among them. 



Of late the process of annihilation seems to have hastened 

 on. From a note of the Rev. Somanader, a missionary in 

 Batticaloa, which I received through the kindness of the 

 Director of the Museum in Colombo, Mr. A. Haly, we are 

 led to think there are scarcely any pure blooded Veddas 

 living ; he calls them " a race almost entirely extinct." 



* Tennent, I. c. t II., p. 444. f Gillings, I. c„ p, 83. 



X Bailey, I. c, p. 296. 



