he
disposition of the leopard towards man is essentially pacific, and
that, when discovered, its natural impulse is to effect its escape. In
illustration of this I insert an extract from one of his letters,
which describes an adventure highly characteristic of this instinctive
timidity:--

"On the occasion of one of my visits to Adam's Peak, in the prosecution
of my military reconnoissances of the mountain zone, I fixed on a pretty
little patena (_i.e._, meadow) in the midst of an extensive and dense
forest in the southern segment of the Peak Range, as a favourable spot
for operations. It would have been difficult, after descending from the
cone of the peak, to have found one's way to this point, in the midst of
so vast a wilderness of trees, had not long experience assured me that
good game tracks would be found leading to it, and by one of them I
reached it. It was in the afternoon, just after one of those tropical
sunshowers that decorate every branch and blade with pendant brilliants,
and the little patena was covered with game, either driven to the open
space by the drippings from the leaves or tempted by the freshness of
the pasture: there were several pairs of elk, the bearded antlered male
contrasting finely with his mate; and other varieties of game in a
profusion not to be found in any place frequented by man. It was some
time before I would allow them to be disturbed by the rude fall of the
axe, in our necessity to establish our bivouac for the night, and they
were so unaccustomed to danger that it was long before they took alarm
at our noises.

"The following morning, anxious to gain a height for my observations
in time to avail myself of the clear atmosphere of sunrise, I started
off by myself through the jungle, leaving orders for my men, with my
surveying instruments, to follow my track by the notches which I cut
in the bark of the trees. On leaving the plain, I availed myself of a
fine wide game track which lay in my direction, and had gone, perhaps,
half a mile from the camp, when I was startled by a slight rustling in
the nilloo[1] to my right, and in another instant, by the spring of a
magnificent leopard, which, in a bound of full eight feet in height
over the lower brushwood, lighted at my feet within eighteen inches of
the spot whereon I stood, and lay in a crouching position, his fiery
gleaming eyes fixed on me.

[Footnote 1: A species of one of the suffruticose _Acanthaccae_
(Strobilanthes),