"The man is a remnant of one of the tribes of Veddahs. They are the most degraded, or rather least civilised of all the people of Ceylon. They are divided into Rock Veddahs, Village Veddahs, and Coast Veddahs. This man belongs to the first, who are the most barbarous of all. They are omnivorous, eating carrion or anything that comes in their way-- roots, or fish, or wild honey, or any animals they can catch; but their favourite food is monkeys and lizards. They live either in caves and nooks in rocks, or on platforms among the boughs of trees. They hunt the deer with bows and arrows, and dry the flesh, which they sometimes barter for articles for which they have a fancy, such as cocoa-nuts, arrow-heads, hatchets, cooking bowls, and coloured cloths. Each family has a head man, who manages domestic affairs, but exercises very little sway over them; their language is of the most limited description; they have no religious rites, no knowledge of a superior being or idea of a future state, and they do not even bury their dead, but cover them up with leaves in the recesses of the forest. They have no names for years, days, or hours; they can scarcely count beyond five on their fingers, and they have no music, games, or amusements of any sort. The Village Veddahs are a degree superior to them, as they live in huts, and roughly cultivate the ground. The Coast Veddahs are somewhat less savage than the first, and employ themselves in fishing and in cutting timber. They have much gentleness of disposition, and though, as might be expected, their morals are in the lowest state, grave crimes are seldom committed. Our government have made most laudable attempts to reclaim them, and in many instances, seconded by the devoted efforts of the missionaries, have met with great success. When I said they have no religious ceremony, I ought to have mentioned that when they are sick, they fancy that they are affected by an evil spirit, and so they send for a devil-dancer to drive it away. Something eatable is made as an offering to the evil spirit, and placed on a tripod of sticks. Before this the devil-dancer, who has his head and girdle decorated with green leaves, begins to shuffle his feet by degrees, working himself into the greatest fury, screaming and moaning, during which time he pretends to receive instructions how to cure the malady. The Wesleyan missionaries especially have laboured indefatigably among these wretched beings, and notwithstanding the low state of barbarism into which they had sunk, have succeeded in converting many hundreds to a knowledge of the glorious truths of Christianity, and in bringing them within 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