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



[Vol. IX. 



tioned. Their colour varies from clear yellow-brown to 

 black ; hair and eyes the colour of ebony. The Kan- 

 dyans are darker, more powerful, and of better growth. 

 Philalethes,* who specially refers to Valentyn, says the colour 

 of the Sinhalese is not quite black, but of a deep chestnut, 

 suffused with a yellow tint. Their ears are long and open, 

 their bodies not powerful, but slender and agile. 



Much more exact is the description which Mr. Davyf 

 gives. He divides the Sinhalese race into three great tribes : 

 the genuine Sinhalese, the Kandyans, and the Yeddas. In 

 describing chiefly the inhabitants of the interior of the 

 Island, " the highlanders," he says that they are in build, 

 speech, manners, customs, religion, and government complete 

 Indians. Like them they are distinguished from Europeans 

 less in the features than in some trifling characteristics of 

 colour, size, and form. The complexion ranges from light 

 brown to black. Also the colour of the hair and the 

 eyes varies, although not so often as that of the skin ; 

 black hair and eyes are most common, and brown hair 

 and eyes less uncommon than gray eyes and red hair, and 

 the light-blue or red eyes and flaxen hair of the Albinos. 

 In size, the inland people exceed the low-land Sinhalese and 

 the most of the natives born on the coast of Coromandel and 

 Malabar, but they do not attain the height of the European. 

 Their average is somewhere about 5 ft. 4 to 5 in. They are 

 clean-made, with neat muscle and small bone. For Indians 

 they are stout, and have, as a rule, well-developed chests and 

 broad shoulders, especially in the mountain districts, where 

 they, like other highlanders, have rather short but strong 

 and very muscular thighs and legs. Hands and feet are in 

 general very small, — indeed disproportionately so compared 

 with ours. The form of the head is good, but perhaps rather 

 longer than among Europeans. Their features are commonly 

 neat and often handsome, their countenances intelligent and 



* Philalethes, I. c, p. 231. 



f Davy, I. c, p. 109. 



