egs, good
wind, and the hunting-knife; no paths but those trodden by the elk and
elephant. Every nook and corner of this wild country is as familiar to
me as my own garden. There is not a valley that has not seen a burst
in full cry; not a plain that has not seen the greyhounds in full speed
after an elk; and not a deep pool in the river that has not echoed with
a bay that has made the rocks ring again.

To give a person an interest in the sport, the country must be described
minutely. The plain already mentioned as the flat table-land first seen
on arrival, is about five miles in length, and two in breadth in the
widest part. This is tolerably level, with a few gentle undulations, and
is surrounded, on all sides but one, with low, forest-covered slopes.
The low portions of the plains are swamps, from which springs a large
river, the source of the Mahawelli Ganga.

From the plain now described about fifteen others diverge, each
springing from the parent plain, and increasing in extent as they
proceed; these are connected more or less by narrow valleys, and deep
ravines. Through the greater portion of these plains, the river winds
its wild course. In the first a mere brook, it rapidly increases as it
traverses the lower portions of every valley, until it attains a width
of twenty or thirty yards, within a mile of the spot where it is first
discernible as a stream. Every plain in succession being lower than the
first, the course of the river is extremely irregular; now a maze
of tortuous winding, then a broad, still stream, bounded by grassy
undulations; now rushing wildly through a hundred channels formed by
obtruding rocks, then in a still, deep pool, gathering itself together
for a mad leap over a yawning precipice, and roaring at a hundred feet
beneath, it settles in the lower plain in a pool of unknown depth; and
once more it murmurs through another valley.

In the large pools formed by the sudden turns in the river, the elk
generally takes his last determined stand, and he sometimes keeps dogs
and men at bay for a couple of hours. These pools are generally about
sixty yards across, very deep in some parts, with a large shallow
sandbank in the centre, formed by the eddy of the river.

We built a hunting bivouac in a snug corner of the plains, which gloried
in the name of 'Elk Lodge.' This famous hermitage was a substantial
building, and afforded excellent accommodation: a verandah in the front,
twenty-eight feet