320 Report on the Macke7izie Munttscripts. fApRii. 



succeeded in extracting, from a young man, the secret, that if the fort 

 were surrounded with varacu straw set on tire, it might be destroyed. 

 The king accordingly had this done ; and in the burning dovv'n of the 

 fort, many of the Camalar lost their lives ; some took to ships be- 

 longing to them, and escaped by sea. Inconsequence there were no 

 artificers in that country. Those taken in the act of endeavouring to 

 escape were beheaded. One woman of the tribe, being pregnant, took 

 refuge in the house of a Chetty, and escaped, passing for his daugh- 

 ter. From a want of artificers, who made implements for weavers, 

 husbandmen and the like, manufactures and agriculture ceased, and 

 great discontent arose in the country. The king being of clever wit, 

 resorted to a device to discover if any of the tribe remained to remedy 

 the evils complained of. This was to send a piece of coral, having a 

 fine tortuous aperture running through it, and a piece of thread, to all 

 parts of the country, with promise of great reward to any one who 

 should succeed in passing the thread through the coral. None could 

 accomplish it. At length the child that had been born in the Chetty's 

 house undertook to do it ; and, to effect it, he placed the coral over the 

 mouth of an ant-hole, and having steeped the thread in sugar, placed 

 it at some little distance. The ants took the thread and drew it 

 through the coral. The king seeing the difficulty overcome, gave 

 great presents, and sent much work to be done ; which that child, under 

 the counsel and guidance of its mother, performed. The king sent 

 for the Chetty and demanded an account of this young man, which 

 the Chetty detailed. The king had him plentifully supplied with the 

 means especially of making plough-shares, and having him married 

 to the daughter of a Chetty, gave him grants of land for his mainte- 

 nance. He had five sons, who followed the five different branches 

 of work of the Camalar tribe. The king gave them the title of Puncha- 

 yet : down to the present day there is an intimate relation between 

 these five branches, and they intermarry with each other; while as 

 descendants of the Chetty tribe, they wear the punnul, or caste-thread 

 of that tribe. Those of the Camalar that escaped by sea are said to 

 have gone to China. It is added that the details of their destruction 

 are contained in the Calingatu Bharani. 



Remarks. — There is no doubt historical truth covered under the 

 veil of fiction, and metaphor: it is particularly desirable to know if 

 artificers really emigrated from India to the eastward. The ruins of 

 it/anc?a or iT/anrfw, remain without any records concerning that place, 

 I believe, in any known history. The Calingatu Bharani a poem is in 

 the Mackenzie collection, and will come under notice hereafter. 



