of the wildest Nilgherry declivities, come up annually to worship at one
of the dolmens on the table-land above, in which they say one of their old
gods resides. Though they are regarded with fear and hatred as sorcerers
by the agricultural B[)a]d[)a]gas of the table-land, one of them must,
nevertheless, at sowing-time be called to guide the first plough for two
or three yards, and go through a mystic pantomime of propitiation to the
earth deity, without which the crop would certainly fail. When so
summoned, the Kurumba must pass the night by the dolmens alone, and I have
seen one who had been called from his present dwelling for the morning
ceremony, sitting after dark on the capstone of a dolmen, with heels and
hams drawn together and chin on knees, looking like some huge ghostly fowl
perched on the mysterious stone." Mr. Gomme has drawn attention to this
and other similar customs in the interesting remarks which he makes upon
the influence of conquered non-Aryan races upon their Aryan subduers.[B]

[Footnote A: _Jour. Anthrop. Inst._, vii. 21.]

[Footnote B: Ethnology and Folk-Lore, p. 46; The Village Community, p.
105.]

Farther south, in Ceylon, the Veddahs live, whom Bailey[A] considers to be
identical with the hill-tribes of the mainland, though, if this be true,
some at least must have undergone a large amount of crossing, judging from
the wavy nature of their hair. The author just quoted says, "The tallest
Veddah I ever saw, a man so towering above his fellows that, till I
measured him, I believed him to be not merely comparatively a tall man,
was only five feet three inches in height. The shortest man I have
measured was four feet one inch. I should say that of males the ordinary
height is from four feet six inches to five feet one inch, and of females
from four feet four inches to four feet eight inches."