274 
THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
The Bedahs, as they acknowledge no power but their own 
chiefs, so they adhere from generation to generation to their 
own laws and customs without the smallest variation. They 
subsist entirely by hunting deer and other animals with which 
their forests supply them. The cultivation of the ground 
is an art which they never attempt to practise ; nor would 
it indeed be possible for them in the thick woods and wilds 
which they inhabit, without infinite labour, to prepare the 
ground for the reception of rice or any other sort of corn. 
The fiesli of the animals which they procure by the chace, 
and the fruits which grow spontaneously around them, com- 
pose their whole food. They sleep either on trees or at the 
foot of them : and in the latter case, they place thorns and 
other bushes all around them to keep off wild beasts, or by 
their rustling to give warning of their approach. As soon as 
the least noise rouses his apprehension, the Bedah climbs up 
the tree with the utmost expertness and celerity. 
The few of this race who are not altogether so wild, al- 
though they do not acknowledge the sovereignty of the king, 
yet they furnish him with ivory, honey, wax, and deer: and 
such of them as skirt the European territories, barter these 
articles with the Cinglese for the simple things which their 
mode of life requires. To prevent themselves from being 
surprised or made prisoners, while carrying on this traffic, 
the method they employ is curious. When they stand in 
need of cloth, iron, knives, or any other articles of smith’s 
work, they approach by night some town or village, and de- 
