Ajinir , 1 Madras, . . 12,332,220 Assam 242 N.W. Provinces, . . 477 Bengal, . . . . 1,623 Baroda, 46 lterar, 792 Central India, . . 428 Bombay, . . . 8,971 Cochin, . . . . 37,256 Burma, . . . . 35,053 Hyderabad, . . 16,340 Central Provinces, 9,666 Mysore, . . . . 130,569 Coorg, . . . . 5,025 Travancore, . 439,565 The Tamil people are, generally speaking, a dark coloured and short-statured race, energetic, fiery, quarrelsome, but not vindictive. Most of them have embraced Brahmanism, but the non - Brali manical and fragmentary tribes have a spirit and a devil worship, and worship the local deities called Ammun. Amongst the poorer of the Tamil people WC find remnants of a belief in spirits, a veneration of black stones, a Shamanite dia bolatry, indications of their earliest mythology. Tamil and Malcolm writing characters were originally modifications of the ancient Tibetan. The Dravidian languages are written in alphabets derived from some prototype of Devanagari, scarcely from the actual Devanagirl. Tamil is written from left to right. Tamil labourers arrived in Ceylon in 1858 to the number of 96,000, and the number who took their departure was 50,000. Amongst the Tamil people, the Adima or Adimai were predial slaves attached hereditarily to the land, and only transferable with it. The Vellala are a Sudra race of flindus
who speak Tamil. They saltine the honorific designation of Mudali or (pl.) Mudliar, meaning first man, and are chiefly farmers, but tnany of them are soldiers. Another branch of the Tamil Tace is the I'dyan, who take the honorific appella tion of Pillai, meaning sons. These are of the herdsman race, and are less advanced in education than the Vellalar. Amongst the broken tribes in the Tamil country, the moro prominent are the Pariah, and the Chakili, the Yenady, the Kadir, the Malai Arisar, and others. The Chakkili is a curlier, a tanner, shoemaker,—the village shoe maker, known to Europeans as a chuckler,—one of the humble races of India, and corresponds to the Mhang or Mang of the Mahratta. country', and the Chamar of N.1V. India. They are held in great disesteem, and are tho public executioners. The condition of the tanners is similar in Japan, where they are:restricted to a particular locality, and are employed.—Censas 0./1881; Elphinstone's India, i. p. 410 ; Tennent ; Wilson.