thin the pale of
civilisation. They are settled in villages, cultivate the ground, and
have schools among them. One or two stations, in consequence of the
missionaries having been carried off by fever, have been abandoned; but
even there those Veddahs who had come under their influence continued to
build cottages and practise the various arts they had learned. Still,
throughout the length and breadth of Ceylon, there is a wide, and, I
firmly believe, a fruitful field among all castes and tribes for the
labours of the Christian missionary."

Having won the confidence of our Veddah, Mr Fordyce desired him to
light a fire by means of two dried sticks--a difficult operation, in
which they are said to be great adepts. He replied that he would do as
we wished; and breaking one of his arrows in two, he sharpened the end
of one into a point, and making a hole in the other, he held it between
his feet and twirled the first rapidly round between the palms of his
hands. But a few moments had passed before smoke ascended and charcoal
appeared; that quickly ignited; and some leaves and sticks being
applied, a blazing fire was soon made.

Mr Fordyce, after questioning the savage, inquired if more of his
companions were in the neighbourhood. He said yes, and that he could
soon bring them. He disappeared, and we got some food ready. In a
short time he returned, with nearly twenty wretched-looking beings,
their hair and beards hanging in masses down to their waists. Each
carried an iron-headed axe in a girdle, a bow about six feet in length
strung with twisted bark, and a few ill-made arrows with peacocks'
feathers at one end and an iron unbarbed head tapering to a point at the
other. After we had given them the deer's flesh we had prepared, we set
up a mark and told them to shoot at it. They were miserable marksmen,
not one arrow in half-a-dozen hitting the target. They said that all
they required was to wound their game, and then that they ran it down
till it died; that they could kill an elephant by wounding him in the
foot. The shaft breaks short off, when, the wound festering, the poor
brute becomes so lame that they can easily overtake him and eventually
worry him to death.

Travelling on through the forest, we came suddenly on an open space of
three hundred acres or more, with a number of huts in the centre, and
people actively employed in cultivating the ground. The space was
divided into patches, containing pad