SINGHA LESE DHOBI.
p . 167.
Arabs, and are still strict Mohamedans. The latter
speak Tamul, in which tongue also the Seera, an
heroic poem, which they are fond of reciting, is
written, whilst the Singhalese language is of the Pali
dialect. Sciences are much neglected by the natives ;
but they are not without artistical instincts, as their
temples prove, as well as many articles they manufacture.
In laces and embroidery, also in carving
blackwood, ebony and tortoise-shell, they show considerable
taste, as they do also in the display of their
costume. , Both men and women wear the comboy or
coloured cloth, put on petticoat fashion, to which the
women generally add a white muslin jacket, or they
throw one end of the comboy over the right shoulder,
covering their bosom, like the women of southern
India. Both sexes confine their long hair by a handsomely
worked comb, and wear earrings and bangles,
but the females do not cover themselves all over with
jewellery as the Hindus do. (Plate XVIII.)
Polyandrism, although abolished some thirty years
ago by Sir Henry Warde, is said still to exist in the
interior of Ceylon, as it is known to do amongst the
Buddhists of Ladakh, the Nairns of Malabar, the hill
tribes of the Himalaya and the Todas, the Aborigines
of the Nilgiris, now numbering barely a thousand
souls ; among the latter, according to Mr. Edwin