358 



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



[Vol. IX. 



that in the space of more than twenty years which intervenes 

 between the two accounts, the effects of educating influences 

 pressing in from all sides upon a before almost isolated 

 people is very noticeable, and explains in the most natural 

 way how certain habits and customs disappear, and others 

 come in. I am therefore inclined to value more highly the 

 testimony of the older observer for his time, than the 

 younger observer is inclined to warrant. But I believe I 

 must defend their distinguished predecessor, Sir Emerson 

 Tennent, against them both. His representations bear 

 throughout the character of great soberness and objectivity ; 

 and his facts differ in the main points very little 

 indeed from those of his successors, especially the more 

 immediate one. We cannot in justice deny that he was the 

 first to throw light on this subject. 



For all this it is very dangerous under such circumstances 

 to decide, at our distance, where the mistakes are, and what 

 is to be accepted as true ; and nought remains but to con- 

 fine ourselves to such changes as can be clearly traced and 

 followed in their development, or to matters about which 

 the various observers agree. Fortunately there is enough 

 to disclose to us the main characteristics of the people. 

 The greatest difficulty here arises from the fact that not a 

 few of the travellers who have treated the subject of the 

 Veddas — notwithstanding a long residence in the Island 

 — have never personally seen any of them, and speak only 

 from hearsay ; and others certainly have not encountered the 

 really wild families. Even Knox,* who never saw a single 

 Vedda, and yet furnishes a likeness of one, distinguishes a 

 " tamer sort," who lived under a kind of subjection to the 

 king of Kandy, and a "wilder,' 1 who were called "Ramba- 

 Vaddahs."} Davy,J who divides them into village and forest 

 Veddas, seems only to have seen the former, yet feels justi- 

 fied in assuming from the information he received that both 



* Knox, I, c, p. 123. f Id., p. 126. % Davy ; I. c, pp. 116, 118. 



