No. 36.— 1888.] THE MOORS OF CEYLON. 239 



V 



utterly unfit to serve as principles of scientific classification 

 for that great family of living beings, the essential character- 

 istics of which are thought and speech, not fibrine, serum, or 

 colouring matter, or whatever else enters into the composition 

 of blood." 1 Of a similar opinion is Sir William Hunter, as 

 may be seen from the following passage, which, by the way, 

 is a propos to the subject discussed in this paper : — " Many 

 storms of conquest (besides the Brahmanical and Buddhist 

 invasions)have since swept over the land (Madras Presidency), 

 and a few colonies of Mughal and Mahratta origin are to be 

 found here and there. But the indelible evidence of lan- 

 guage proves that the ethnical character of the population has 

 remained stable under all their influences, and that the Madras 

 Hindu, Muhammadan, Jain, and Christian are of the same 

 Dravidian stock." 2 



If therefore we take language as the test of nationality, 

 the Moors of Ceylon, who speak as their vernacular the Tamil, 

 must be adjudged Tamils. But as some ethnologists, like 

 Dr. Tylor, maintain that language of itself affords only partial 

 evidence of race, 3 I shall dive a little deeper and prove that 

 the conclusion I have arrived at is supported as much by the 

 history of the Moors (so far as it may be ascertained) as by 

 their social customs and physical features. 



Those returned in the Census of 1881 as " Moors " are to 



1 Chips from a German Workshop, III,,, p. 265 (" Cornish Antiquities "). 



2 Gazetteer of India, s. v. " Madras Presidency." 



3 See article "Anthropology " in Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th edition, 

 p. 119. 



Speaking- of the political significance attached in modern days to 

 linguistic affinities, Sir Henry Maine says : — " If you examine the bases 

 proposed for common nationality before the new knowledge growing out 

 of the study of Sanskrit had been popularised in Europe, you will find 

 them extremely unlike those which are now advocated, and even passion- 

 ately advocated, in parts of the Continent. For the most part the older 

 bases theoretically suggested were common history — common, prolonged 

 subjection to the same sovereign, common institutions, common religion, 

 sometimes a common language, but then a common vernacular language. 

 That people not necessarily understanding one another's tongue should 

 be grouped together politically on the ground of linguistic affinities 



