rmarried with the natives,
the great mass of the population long held aloof from the invaders, and
occasionally vented their impatience in rebellion.[2] Hence the progress
of civilisation amongst them was but partial and slow, and in the
narratives of the early rulers of the island there is ample evidence
that the aborigines long retained their habits of shyness and timidity.

[Footnote 1: _Ibid.,_ p. 53.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch, lxxxv.]

Notwithstanding the frequent resort of every nation of antiquity to its
coasts, the accounts of the first voyagers are almost wholly confined to
descriptions of the loveliness of the country, the singular brilliancy
of its jewels, the richness of its pearls, the sagacity of its
elephants, and the delicacy and abundance of its spices; but the
information which they furnish regarding its inhabitants is so uniformly
meagre, as to attest the absence of intercourse; and the writers of all
nations, Romans, Greeks, Arabians, Chinese and Indians, concur in their
allusions to the unsocial and uncivilised customs of the islanders.[1]

[Footnote 1: See an account of these singular peculiarities, Vol. I. P.
IV. c. vii.]

As the Bengal adventurers advanced into the interior of the island, a
large section of the natives withdrew into the forests and hunting
grounds on the eastern and southern coasts.[1] There, subsisting by the
bow[2] and the chase, they adhered, with moody tenacity, to the rude
habits of their race; and in the Veddah of the present day, there is
still to be recognised a remnant of the untamed aborigines of Ceylon.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Hiouen Thsang,_ the Chinese geographer, who visited India
in the seventh century, says that at that time the Yakkhos had retired
to the south-east corner of Ceylon;--and here their descendants, the
Veddahs, are found at the present day,--_Voyages,_ &c., liv. iv. p.
200.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso,_ ch. xxiv. p. 145, xxxiii. p. 204.]

[Footnote 3: DE ALWIS, _Sidath Sangara,_ p. xvii. For an account of the
Veddahs and their present condition, see Vol. II. P. ix. ch. iii.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]

Even those of the original race who slowly conformed to the religion and
habits of their masters, were never entirely emancipated from the
ascendency of their ancient superstitions. Traces of the worship of
snakes and demons are to the present hour clearly perceptible amongst
them; the Buddhists still resort to the incantations of the "devil
dance