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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XIII. 



any other nationality in the Island. The name Mechanic, 

 generally applied to them as a class, is derived from the fact 

 that they are almost exclusively devoted to the lower crafts 

 of artisanship. They are usually shoemakers, tailors, or 

 blacksmiths, and their conservatism is such that few, if 

 hardly any, are known to have grown out of their ancestral 

 callings. 



Their race, as at present constituted, is an admix- 

 ture of several nationalities, having for its nucleus the 

 offspring of the Portuguese settlers of maritime Ceylon. 

 These Portuguese were wont to take to themselves native 

 wives, and upon the Dutch occupation left behind them a 

 considerable number of descendants. These latter, on account 

 of their faith, to which they rigidly adhered in spite of the 

 persecutions of their conquerors, were debarred from holding 

 office or occupying positions of trust or honour under the 

 Dutch regime, and were consequently obliged to seek refuge 

 in the mechanical arts. Compelled by the circumstances of 

 their callings to move among the lower classes of the native 

 population, they frequently contracted marriages among the 

 latter, and absorbed into their language a host of Sinhalese 

 and Tamil words. 



It is also more than probable that the Portuguese descen- 

 dants freely associated with the soldiers of the Caffir 

 regiments employed by the Dutch, from whom much of 

 the national music of the Ceylon Mechanic seems to have 

 originated. Of this i there is ample evidence. I need only 

 refer to the word "Cafferina," and to the tune No. 4 in 

 the collection, viz., " Velinda Mazambicu," which clearly has 

 reference to the Island of Mozambique. Bertolacci, writing in 

 1817, calls it "a very remarkable fact that of about 9,000 

 Caffirs at different times imported into Ceylon by the Dutch 

 Government, no descendants are remaining — at least they are 

 in no way to be distinguished among the present inhabi- 

 tants." * These Caffirs were doubtless absorbed among the 



* Bertolacci's Ceylon, 1817, p. 45. 



