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'O Karlinahami!' Nanchohami, the headman's wife, would say, 'you are growing an old woman and, alas, childless! But you have done much for your brother's children. Shameless they must be to leave it to you to fetch the water from the tank and not to help you. This is the fourth chatty full you are carrying to-day. I have seen it with these eyes. The lot of the childless woman is a hard one. See how my little one of eight years helps me!'

'Nanchohami, your tongue is still as sharp as chillies. Punchi Menika has gone with my brother, and Hinnihami is busy in the house.'

'Punchi Menika wants but three things to make her a man. I pity you, Karlinahami, to live in the house of a madman, and to bring up his children shameless, having no children of your own. They are vedda[5] children, and will be vedda women, wandering in the jungle like men.'

The other women laughed, and Angohami, a dirty shrivelled woman, with thin shrivelled breasts, called out in a shrill voice:

'Why should we suffer these veddas in the village? Their compound smells of their own droppings, and of the offal and rotten meat on which they feed. I have borne six children, and the last died but yesterday. In the morning he was well: then Silindu cast the evil eye upon him as he passed our door, and in the evening he was dead. They wither our children that their own may thrive.'