2 



€ndure privation with stoicism, a virtue that the wretchedness of 

 their situation too often calls into action. Of migratory habits they 

 move about in small hordes, necessity alone leads them to the 

 inhabited parts, where no inducement could persuade them perma- 

 nently to remain. In their rambling tours they carry a Staff or 

 Pike, a Knife stuck in the girdle, and sometimes Bows and Arrows, 

 for they have no fire Arms. A Basket, slung at the shoulders, 

 contains some few necessary utensils ; and followed by their Dogs 

 and Women, the latter loaded with the younger children and other 

 impediments of the Family, they wander from one place to another, 

 as caprice or convenience may dictate. Their Huts are soon erect- 

 ed, often on Rocks, or Trees, a security against Tigers and Ele- 

 phants, their fellow occupants of the Woods, with whom they share 

 or dispute possession. Conversing among themselves, they are 

 unintelligible to those from th^ inhabited parts, this however only 

 arises from the dissonant sound conveyed by their harsh and abrupt 

 utterance. Each tribe is intimately well acquainted with the tract 

 considered particularly its own, and on whose precincts they do not 

 admit encroachments. They trace, as by instinct, its devious paths, 

 and decide with almost unerring certainty on the number and vari- 

 ety of Animals that may have lately traversed them. They are 

 restrained or confine themselves to one Wife or Mistress, often their 

 neice, a connection aimed at as securing the purity of the race ; 

 the offspring in most cases is considered as belonging to the mo- 

 ther. Their superstitions are said to have a favorable influence on 

 their morality, but the Women, subject to every species of hardship 

 and drudgery, can have but little leisure or disposition to be incon- 

 tinent. Their Dress only differs from that of the Nairs, in covering 

 the upper part of the person with an abundance of Cloth, but it is 

 an equivocal benefit, cleanliness being in this instance sacrificed to 

 decorum, as they do convenience to ornament, in encumbering the 

 Ears with pendants, and loading the neck with countless strings of 

 beads, decorations little adapted to their vagrant mode of life. 

 They are haunted by a variety of superstitions, large tracts of Forests 

 sacred to some ideal spirit, however great the temptations their 

 productions might offer, are scrupulously avoided by them ; some 

 regard the head with particular veneration, and will not carry any 

 burthen on it. Women under certain circumstances, or when par- 

 turient, are objects whose approach or contact is dreaded, in the 

 latter case they are removed to a hut (being supposed to pollute it 

 by their presence) some distance from the Village, and the event 

 trusted to the unaided opemtions of nature. Those Mountaineers 



