A large concourse of Tudas, both male and female, had assembled. They were still in procession, moving towards the centre of the green; and on a bier formed of green herbs and the boughs of trees, lay the deceased, dressed in a new garment and mantle, and having on the ornaments he had worn in life. Immediately following came the mourners, male and female, chanting the lament; and after these, a throng of people, carrying bundles of wood, small sacks of grain, newly-made butter in cups formed of leaves, or pots of milk, in different states of preparation, and such few utensils as are required by so simple a people in the cookery of a meal, even for a large multitude. At one corner of the green, we observed, issuing from the adjoining wood, and goaded on by ten or twelve athletic Tudas, a herd of buffaloes, the intended victims of sacrifice, which were driven to the Tu-el, and there for the present confined.

The bier was now placed on a rising ground in the centre of the green, when the friends and relations, taking up a little earth, sprinkled it on the body with much ceremony, and seating themselves around it, continued their lamentations. The rest of the assembly dispersed, some to rear the pile, others to prepare the subsequent repast, while the remainder collecting in groupes, entered into converse, seemingly unconnected with the passing scene.

At a short distance, crowning the summit of a mountain which overlooked this vale of sorrow, sat some twelve or fifteen Cohatars, with attenuated forms, unseemly garb, and hair loose-flowing in the wind, looking like harpies waiting the moment whereon to gorge themselves with their destined prey, rather than anything allied to humanity.

Three or four other Tudas arrived about this time, and going up to the corpse, sprinkled a little earth upon it, bent forward, and making the salutation before described, threw themselves upon it.

The sacrifice now commenced, but, as almost the same ceremony will be described when we come to speak of the performance of the obsequies, it may suffice at present to observe, that the animals were forced into a circle around the body, and there slain; and as each of the victims fell, the deceased was addressed by the party sacrificing, who, mentioning the name of the animal, said they had sent her to accompany him.

After the sacrifice, a middle-aged man, the brother of the deceased, cut off two or three locks of hair from about the temples; when the body was conveyed to the recess in the wood, taken from off the bier, and placed on the pile, the feet to the east, the face downwards, and without any of the dress or ornaments being removed. The relations and friends now threw over it handfuls of parched grain of various descriptions, and of coarse sugar; other logs of wood being then heaped over the whole, the pile was ignited, in the first instance, by the person who had cut off the locks of hair, and then by the other attendants, who afterwards surrounding the pile, continued their exertions to accomplish the speedy consumption of the body.

This did not occupy much time. The wood quickly blazed up, and sent forth a column of smoke that, from the thickness of the foliage and density of the atmosphere, could not find an easy vent, but

spread itself in a cloud immediately above us, and quite shut out all light except that which proceeded from the pile. It was a gloomy spectacle. The almost naked forms of the funeral assistants, for they had previously thrown off their mantles-their anxiety, and their energy, in encouraging the flame-their now darkling and savage countenances-the sickening odour from the pile-the yells and cries of the Cohatars, dragging away the offerings of the sacrifice and the distant moan of the females-gave to the whole an appearance quite unearthly.

During the continuance of this ceremony, and that which took place on the green, the relations of the deceased kept their heads covered, by drawing their mantles over them; a variation of costume, with them, expressive of sorrow and mourning.

'Some water was now thrown on the pile, and the relations carefully examining the ashes, selected from them two or three pieces of the scull bone, and such of the gold and silver ornaments as they could find, and tying them up with the locks of hair, in the remnant of an old mantle, the whole of the party returned to the green.' pp. 50–53.

Captain Harkness was subsequently witness to the funeral obsequies of an aged Tuda chief, which were celebrated with still greater pomp. There is, however, not a little imaginative colouring evidently thrown into the description; and we must confess, that we cannot place entire confidence in representations so ob viously over-wrought, and so irreconcileable with other parts of the Writer's narrative. In one place, we are told, that these Tudas were totally unacquainted, till of late, with any of the luxuries of life, not even knowing the use of salt, and having no 'wants except what nature in almost her simplest state requires '; -having no notion of even the use of any weapon of defence, though hardy and fearless';-at the same time, indolent and 'slothful' when not under some strong excitement, and having no pretensions to cleanliness;-without any knowledge of a written character, or of the process of writing; in fact, mere barbarians; suspected of infanticide; and notwithstanding the grace, and modesty, and strength of feeling, and correctness of thought' of 'the lively, laughter-loving, long-tressed ladies of the mountains, customs are found to prevail among them, which unite the licentiousness of civilized nations to the grossness of Scythian barbarism. Not only is a plurality of husbands allowed, but, if Captain Harkness has not been imposed upon, a woman may have also her two or three cicisbeos! The existence among them of this loathsome polygamy, affords a strong presumption, that these mountaineers are very closely related to the military tribe called Nairs, on the Malabar coast, from which territory they are most likely to have emigrated. About the year 1766, Malabar was subdued by Hyder Ali; and during the war, the Rajah of Calicut committed suicide, and the other chiefs, abandoning their territories, took refuge in the mountains. When the province of

Malabar was wrested from Tippoo Sultaun, the different Nair chiefs were reinstated in their former possessions upon certain conditions: these, however, they failed to discharge, and they were deprived of their authority. If the invasion of Malabar by Hyder Ali should be thought too recent a date for the emigration of these Tudas, it would be easy to find, in the Malabaric annals, other events which would afford a probable explanation of their having fled to this region, in agreement with their own tradition.

Captain Harkness was struck with the strongly-marked Jewish ' countenance' of one of the Tuda priests; (for it seems they have priests;) nor is it at all improbable that this physiognomical resemblance may arise from a mixture of Jewish blood. Several colonies of Oriental Jews have at different periods settled on the Malabar coast, and have intermarried with the natives. About the year 490, according to the tradition of the White Jews of Cochin, the reigning king of Cranganore made to their ancestors a grant, conveying a patriarchal jurisdiction within a certain district, with certain privileges of nobility; and they remained there for about a thousand years. But at last, discord arising among themselves, one of their chiefs called in the aid of an Indian king, who came upon them with a great army, destroyed their houses, palaces, and strongholds, dispossessed them of Cranganore, killed part of them, and carried part into slavery. Some of those who escaped, came to dwell at Cochin, and laid the foundation of the present colony in that territory. The famous Malabaric king, Ceram Perumal, who flourished in the eighth or ninth century, is well known to have made grants, during his reign, to Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans. In fact, the vince of Malabar has been, from remote times, the resort and refuge of adventurers, traders, and exiles from all the coasts of the Indian seas. Calicut was the New York of India, the course of emigration naturally flowing in the most ancient maritime line of communication between the East and the West; for the Portuguese, who made their first settlement in this part of India, where their descendants are numerous, succeeded to a trade that had been carried on by Egyptian Greeks, in the time of the Romans, and probably by the Phenicians before them.

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That the Tudas are of Jewish origin, is not indeed to be supposed. Their funeral rites forbid the supposition of direct Jewish or Christian descent, although a Jewish mixture of race is far from impossible. If the Nairs were originally a military colony from a more northern region, it is possible that the pride of blood might combine with the scarcity of women of their own tribe, to introduce the shameful polyandrian custom, which also prevails in Mongolia; and white women would be preferred in marriage to

* Buchanan's "Christian Researches", p. 305.

those of Hindoo race. That the Tudas originally belonged to a military caste, their ignorance of husbandry and the useful arts affords strong indication. Such nations are always found to consist, like the Fellatahs of Central Africa, of two classes, distinguished by their habits of life; shepherds or herdsmen, and warriors or depredators. These pacific Tudas may, therefore, without any improbability, be supposed to belong to the same nation as a tribe of very different habits. Notwithstanding their alleged ignorance of the use of weapons, however, it comes out incidentally, that they have clubs as well as wands, and knives, at least for sacrifice; nay, a wood-cutter's ax' is spoken of; and among the insignia of a deceased chief, we find mentioned, a little painted bow, and three feathered arrows with bladed iron 'heads, although not, it would seem, of their own manufacture. The following is a description of the contents of a funeral pyre.

The pile was now closely encircled with little baskets, bamboo cups, and variously shaped gourds; some bound with silver, others ornamented with thread and tape of divers colours, and the whole filled with grain, the produce of the hills. The bow and three arrows were then placed on it; after these, the rod and wand; and then, the axe and wood-craft of the deceased; last of all, his standard staff (a pole between twenty and thirty feet long, at the end of which, instead of a flag, is tied a bunch of small shells). Fresh billets being added, the whole was shortly in one general blaze; and when the morning dawned, all within the circle was reduced to a heap of charcoal and smouldering ashes.' p. 170.

After reading this account, so utterly irreconcileable with the Author's previous statements, we felt it difficult to suppress the suspicion, that the whole account of these Tudas is meant as a pleasant hoax upon the British public, and that we had been wasting our own time and that of our readers, in endeavouring to reduce the scattered and discordant information in this volume to intelligible consistency. We have therefore refrained from entering further into the suspicious details relating to their priesthood, and sacred groves, and sacred dairies, and dairy-men, their satyr-like dances, inspired oracles, lively music, &c. &c. with regard to which the Author's imagination has apparently led him to dress up a few simple facts in the tawdry garb of fiction. If dependence is to be placed upon his statements, it is quite evident, that the most interesting people who inhabit these mountains, the most advanced in civilization, and those who

It may be remarked, that the original design of the Levirate law among the Jews, is supposed by Michaelis to have been, to remedy and check the grosser evils of polygamy. See Smith's Michaelis, Vol. II. p. 98.

have the best claim to be considered as the aboriginal natives, are the Cohatars, who occupy many of the most elevated parts of the mountains, and with regard to whom we meet with the following statement.

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They are a strange race; have no distinction of caste; and differ as much from the other tribes of the mountaineers as they do from all other natives of India. They cultivate a considerable quantity of the different kinds of millet, and of the poppy, and sometimes a little barley. They are the only artisans of the hills, being goldsmiths, silversmiths, pollers, &c. &c. They are not Hindoos, but worship ideal gods of their own, which, however, they do not represent by any image. Their villages are, many of them, very prettily situated, and generally on a hill; and every hill thus occupied is called Cohatagiri, or, as more commonly pronounced, Cotagiri. These people, the Tudas call Cúvs, their term for a mechanic.' p. 30.

Yet, immediately after giving this account of these people, who must be the only class possessed of either wealth or civilization, the Author adds, that "the most numerous, the most wealthy, and

what must be considered as the most civilized class of the in'habitants' are the Burghers,'-the farmers of the hills: they are Hindoo cultivators, of the Siva sect,' whose language is the Karnata, their original country the Mysore, and their character is marked by the abject timidity and superstition of the idolatrous natives of the plains. From these Burghers or Baddacars, Capt. H.supposes the Cohatars to have borrowed many of their customs, although the reverse seems at least equally probable, and the superiority of the latter seems to be acknowledged.

Every Cohatar village has belonging to it, a circle of Burgher hamlets or villages, from which they claim at periodical seasons the payment in kind of certain fees or dues; and for which they in return furnish the Burghers with, or rather make for them, (the latter supplying the material,) their implements of wood-craft and husbandry, the principal part of their pottery, and such basket work as they require; assist them occasionally in gathering in their harvest, and attend with their pipe and tabor on their funerals, marriages, &c. &c. These fees are generally paid in a certain quantity of whatever grain the Burgher has cultivated, for each plough of land, besides incidental dues on marriages, &c. &c. From the Tuda and other tribes, they also receive assistance, either in money or in kind; but this is in direct return for any services which they may perform.' p. 78.

The Burghers, on being questioned respecting the tribute they pay to the other classes, willingly acknowledged the justice of the Cohatars' claims', while what they gave to the Tuda fa'milies was, they said, given of their own good will'. The Cohatars are in fact, as their name probably imports, the primitive mountaineers; although they too must have originally emigrated from the low country, bringing with them the knowledge of the useful

VOL. VII.-N.S.

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