Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/78

Rh with sharpened horns. On a spacious loft, overlooking the enclosure, stand the shepherd girls whom they intend to give away in marriage. The shepherd youths prepared for the fight, first pray to their gods whose images are placed under old banian or peepul trees or at watering places. Then they deck themselves with garlands made of the bright red flowers of the kânthal and the purple flowers of the kâya. At a signal given by the beating of drums, the youths leap into the enclosure and try to seize the bulls, which, frightened by the noise of the drums, are now ready to charge any one who approaches them. Each youth approaches a bull which he chooses to capture. But the bulls rush furiously with tails raised, heads bent down and horns levelled at their assailants. Some of the youths face the bulls boldly and seize their horns. Some jump aside and take hold of their tails. The more wary young men skilfully avoid the horns and clasping the neck cling to the animals till they force them to fall on the ground. Many a luckless youth is now thrown down. Some escape without a scratch, while others are trampled upon or gored by the bulls. Some though wounded and bleeding again spring on the bulls. A few who succeed in capturing the animals are declared, the victors of that day’s fight. The elders then announce that the bull fight is over. The wounded are carried out of the enclosure and attended to immediately; while the victors and the brideselect repair to an adjoining grove, and there forming into groups, dance joyously before preparing for their marriage.

The Jews appear to have visited the Western Coast in the early centuries of the Christian Era. They have a tradition that a large number of their nation came and settled in Malabar soon after the destruction of their temple at Jerusalem, which event took place in A. D. 68. There is no allusion however to the Jews in ancient Tamil literature. But the fact that they were settled in the Western Coast during the second century is established beyond a doubt by the ancient deeds engraved in copper, still in possession of the Jews and Syrian Christians of Malabar. These deeds are written in ancient Tamil and in the archaic character known as Vaddeluttu or “round letters.” They