y hills.

My encampment was well chosen in this romantic spot. It was a place
where you might live all your life without seeing a soul except a
wandering bee-hunter, or a native sportsman who had ventured up from
the low country to shoot an elk.

Surrounded on all sides but one with steep hills, my hunting settlement
lay snugly protected from the wind in a little valley. A small jungle
about a hundred yards square grew at the base of one of these grassy
hills, in which, having cleared the underwood for about forty yards, I
left the rarer trees standing, and erected my huts under their shelter
at the exact base of the knoll. This steep rise broke off into an
abrupt cliff about sixty yards from my tent, against which the river
had waged constant war, and, turning in an endless vortex, had worn a
deep hole, before it shot off in a rapid torrent from the angle,
dashing angrily over the rocky masses which had fallen from the
overhanging cliff, and coming to a sudden rest in a broad deep pool
within twenty yards of the tent door.

This was a delicious spot. Being snugly hidden in the jungle, there
was no sign of my encampment from the plain, except the curling blue
smoke which rose from the little hollow. A plot of grass of some two
acres formed the bottom of the valley before my habitation, at the
extremity of which the river flowed, backed on the opposite side by an
abrupt hill covered with forest and jungle.

This being a chilly part of Ceylon, I had thatched the walls of my
tent, and made a good gridiron bedstead, to keep me from the damp
ground, by means of forked upright sticks, two horizontal bars and
numerous cross-pieces. This was covered with six inches' thickness of
grass, strapped down with the bark of a fibrous shrub. My table and
bench were formed in the same manner, being of course fixtures, but
most substantial. The kitchen, huts for attendants and kennel were
close adjoining. I could have lived there all my life in fine weather.
I wish I was there now with all my heart. However, I had sufficient
bad luck on my last visit to have disgusted most people. Poor
Matchless, who was as good as her name implied, died of inflammation of
the lungs; and I started one morning in very low spirits at her loss,
hoping to cheer myself up by a good hunt.

It was not long before old Bluebeard's opening note was heard high upon
the hill-tops; but, at the same time, a portion of the pack had found
another elk, whi