350 



Marava-J athi-Vernanam : 



[Oct. 



elapses (hiring the progress of the work under execution, decreases ra- 

 pidly the comparative expense of transport by means of railroads, 

 when applied to such purposes as have just been stated. This cannot 

 be better explained than by the faet, that if, in the last mention- 

 ed case, when rails are supposed to have been employed throughout 

 the whole extent of operations, the work had been continued for six 

 days more than what the calculation allows for, the laying of this road 

 would have been the source of defraying the original cost, not only of 

 itself but of the carriages which traversed it, the daily expenditure of 

 transport by the rails being 16 rupees, that by animal labour 41 rupees, 

 4 annas. 



Rails, also, when once obtained, are useful, not only for the work on 

 account of which they have been immediately procured, but bear with 

 them many advantages for the facilitating of future operations — As a 

 source of economy in all works of considerable extent, as a means -of 

 warding off confusion and consequent misapplication of labour, where 

 many w orkmen are engaged, their efficiency is undoubted. 



XI. — Marava-Jathi Ver\ t anam. — From the unpublished Mackenzie 

 Manuscripts in the possession of the Asiatic Department of the 

 Madras Literary Society, 8fC. — Professor Wilson's Descriptive 

 Catalogue, Vol. 1, A. II. No. 36. — Translated, with Introductory 

 Observations, by the Rev. Wrn. Taylor. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The race of the Maravas have, at different times and in various 

 proportions, been spread through the Tanjore, Madura and Tinnevelly 

 provinces ; but properly speaking they inhabit a strip of land on the 

 coast, from Cape Comorin to some distance north of Ramnad, the 

 principal tow 7 n. They are a people of very considerable antiquity ; 

 and there appears to be some reason to conclude that they are descen- 

 dants of the rude tribes that peopled the peninsula of India, before 

 that Hindus from the north had colonized it, and before Brdhmanism 

 was therein known. It is a disadvantage to our earlier knowledge, 

 that records have been written, and transmitted down to us, either by 

 Brdhmans, or by persons under their influence. But, so far as can be 

 ascertained, the peninsula, when first visited from Hindustan proper, 

 was peopled by rude tribes of foresters, mountaineers, and hunters, 

 uncivilized and uncontrolled. The expedition of Rama, the son of 

 Dasaratha, of Ayodhya to the south, yields the first traces of history ; 

 though much disguised by the allegorical, the poetical, and the mar- 

 vellous. According to the Ramdyana, the forest (or wilderness) of 



