the forts, districts, and villages belonging to the Kurubavaru caste, which consisted of twenty-four forts, eighty-one districts, and one thousand and nine hundred villages. This country was formerly named Dandaka Aranya. Dandaka is the name of a famous Rakshasa or Giant, who is mentioned in the Ramayana, and Aranya signifies a wilderness. It was also called Dhuntra Nadu, or the middle country, and the new Raja named it Dhanda Mandalam, or country of the tree dhonda, alluding to the fruit of the adhonda or dhonda tree, which bore testimony to his descent. The emigrants of the Vellala caste surnamed themselves Dhonda Mandala Vellala varu, and are now corruptly called Tondamandala Vellala varu." In connection with the sub-divisions of the Vellalas, Mr. Hemingway, in a note on the Vellalas of the Trichinopoly district, gives some still further information. "The Kondaikattis are so-called from the peculiar way in which they used to wear their hair--a custom no longer observed. They are split into two sections, called Melnadu and Kilnadu (westerns and easterns). The Dakshinattans (south country men) are immigrants from Tinnevelly. The members of the Karaikkattar sub-division in the Udaiyarpalaiyam taluk are rather looked down on by other Vellalans as being a mixed race, and are also somewhat contemptuously called Yeruttu-mattu (pack-bullocks), because, in their professional calling, they formerly used pack-bullocks. They have a curious custom by which a girl's maternal uncle ties a tali (marriage badge) round her neck when she is seven or eight years old. The Panjukkara Chettis live in the Udaiyarpalaiyam taluk. The name is an occupational one, and denotes cotton-men, but they are not at the present day connected with the cotton trade. The Solapuram (or Cholapuram) Chettis are apparently called after the village of that name in the Kumbakonam taluk of Tanjore. The Solias (or Cholias) are numerous and ubiquitous. They are generally regarded as of doubtful descent, since parvenus, who wish to be considered Vellalans, usually claim to belong to this sub-division. The more respectable Pandarams, the Thambirans who own temples and matams, and the Oduvar or Adi Saival, belong to the Sozhia section. The Uttunattu sub-division is local in origin. Its head-quarters is the country round Uttatur. The members thereof are the special devotees of the Siva of that place. The Arunattus (six nadus) are also called Mottai (shaved) Vellalans, apparently because they always shave their moustache, and wear only a very small kudumi (hair-knot). Some of their customs are unlike those of the rest of the caste. They have exogamous septs, their widows always dress in white and wear no ornaments (a rule not universally observed in any other sub-division), they never marry their sister's daughter, and their wives wear the tali (marriage badge), like the Panta Reddis, on a golden thread. Of their six nadus, three of which are supposed to have been located on each side of the