368 



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



[Vol. IX. 



form of permanent dwelling places,* although they sheltered 

 themselves from the inclemency of the weather in the 

 natural caverns of the country, or in simple hutsf made 

 of branches of trees and bark put together : they seem never 

 to have made these their settled abodes. 



On the contrary, perpetual change of place within their 

 hunting grounds was ever the rule. Hence their social 

 intercourse, indeed their circle of interests, is essentially 

 limited to their nearest of kin, whose number is often very 

 small, consisting, perhaps, of only four or five persons. All 

 stimulant to higher requisitions and enjoyments is therefore 

 wanting. Ambition, jealousy, love of finery, cannot thrive 

 among them ; nor, on the other hand, does the need of any 

 sustained mental effort appear. Thus, as it seems to me, 

 may the natural explanation be found of a list of peculiari- 

 ties ; indeed, also, in part of contradictory oddities. 



From such a wild and inferior race of people one might 

 perhaps expect that they would assault strangers, menace 

 their neighbours, and live in a state of war with the more 

 remote portions of the tribe. But, setting aside some very 

 old tales and records of individual cases, which may be 

 wholly disregarded, the habits of the Veddas are thoroughly 

 peaceable. They have never even made the step from 

 hunter to warrior. They are peaceable among themselves 

 and towards others, so long as they are unmolested. They 



* Knox (I. c, pp. 61, 62) says of them: — "They have no towns nor 

 houses, only live by the waters under a tree, with some boughs cut and 

 laid round about them, to give notice when any wild beasts come near, 

 which they may hear by their rustling and trampling upon them." He 

 saw such places on his flight from an almost twenty years' imprisonment. 



f Sir E. Tennent, I. c, II., p. 439, speaks also of this, and that they some- 

 times slept upon stagings which they prepared in the trees. This would 

 demonstrate habits like those to which Mr. F„ Jagor calls attention in 

 his account of the Kanikars in Hindustan. (Zuitf. Ethnologie, 1879. 

 Verhandh. der Berlin Anthrop. Gresellsch, s. 79, Tat. 9.) On the other 

 hand, Mr. Hartshorne asserts they are bad climbers, and possess no special 

 capacity for catching hold with the feet. Percival (I. o., pp. 284, 285) asserts 

 on the other hand that they climb trees with the greatest expertness and 

 celerity, and sleep on them or at their feet. 



