CHAPTER XI.

"PUNCHY "-START FOR NEWERA ELIA-LEECHES-STOPPED AT A RIVER SCENERY-ARRIVE AT NEWERA ELIA.

AFTER enjoying the kind hospitality of the planters of Kotmalie for some five or six days, we completed our arrangement for our further progress to Newera Elia and Badula.

During these few days, I had the pleasure of increasing my acquaintance with "Punchy," my pony. I found the change of climate had effected no alteration in his mischievous disposition; his antics and tricks were as continual as ever; but little peculiarities of curvetting, or standing on his tail or head, which in the broad flat roads of the low country were only annoying or ridiculous, were, in the narrow precipitous paths of the mountains, actually dangerous. Several times, in his reckless attempts at a lark, he got his hind legs over precipices of most unpleasant abruptness; once, indeed, he was more than half over, and but that the soil was fortunately firm, we must have rolled a distance of some hundred feet. He had a very disagreeable propensity also of trying to bolt into stables, kitchens, or, in fact,

any outhouses with low doorways, that came in his way; and being remarkably small himself, he did not apparently consider the additional height of his rider. I should have parted with him, but he was so strong and hardy, that I trusted to long journeys and short rations to bring him to his proper bearings.

Chad invested in a quadruped which was the very opposite of mine in every respect. If the goddess of mischief and god of pleasantry had presided at the accouchement of my pony's parent, the deities of sloth and patience must have taken an active part in presiding at that of C's. If the term "6 patient in long suffering" can be applied to an animal, he certainly possessed it in an eminent degree. No amount or intensity of kicks, blows, or abuse had the slightest effect in accelerating his movements; his vitality, instead of being diffused generally over his whole body, seemed to be confined to particular parts, and his sense of feeling to be composed of a number of senses of feeling" entirely unconnected with each other. No one blow had any visible effect but on the part actually struck; a blow on the head, for instance, or the hind quarters, would turn the head slightly, and cause a wincing in the quarter struck, but it would not in the slightest degree have the effect of increasing his speed; the

only means of effecting that was to strike all the several seats of feeling one after another as quickly as possible, and by that means a sort of combination of power was acquired, which caused a momentary acceleration of speed. The pony was formed on most remarkable lines of equestrian architecture: his fore and hind quarters appeared to have no connexion with each other whatever. The fore quarters were always either pulling forward the hind, or being pushed forward by them; they never moved in unison, or with any appearance of being impelled by the same equine will.

Our companion had procured volunteers amongst the coolies of the adjoining estate for our party, and on the 6th July they were despatched, to the number of forty, with tents, edibles, potables, physic, guns, and ammunition, to Badula, a distance of some seventy-five or eighty miles; they would probably take four or five days to accomplish that journey, whereas we intended to ride it in two. We ourselves started before daybreak on the 8th, intending to reach Newera Elia that evening, and progressed very satisfactorily for the first eight miles, the roads bad, but passable.

Our route for a considerable distance lay through patna, or open grass lands, and the number of leeches that there attacked us and the horses was perfectly incredible; they were hanging on the

horses' fetlocks and on the horse-keeper's legs in bunches, and even on horseback as we were, and only occasionally brushed by the long grass, they managed to board us, and the first intimation one had of their presence was a sensation of some cold heavy body hanging to one's flesh. They are excessively small when lean, and can insert their disgusting bodies through the smallest crevices, but they swell in an extraordinary manner, and when replete and gorged, are almost as large as a European leech in that state.

Their quickness of vision and the celerity of their hoop-like progress is very remarkable. When you stop in a patna, although there may not be a leech visible, in less than a minute you will see them hurrying, thin and hungry, from all quarters. They are most undaunted in their attacks, and most adhesive in their attentions. They illustrate the expression of sticking to one like a leech, more than any other kind I have seen. It is sometimes impossible to detach them, and you are obliged to squeeze them to death in the position they occupy, by no means an agreeable alternative. Their bite is excessively poisonous, and you frequently see scars and sores on the natives' understandings, arising solely from that cause. The wound is succeeded by intense itching, and the unwary griff who scratches will assuredly suffer. The

larger kind of leech used for medicinal purposes is also found in numbers in Ceylon, but I am not aware that they are exported. The smaller kind that I have been describing, attack the cattle when grazing, and effectually prevent their improving or acquiring flesh when feeding on patna. I do not know that they are found in any other part of the world but Ceylon and the western ghauts of India.

The rains had been very heavy during the past few days, and doubts had been expressed by competent authority as to the chance of our being stopped at a river it was necessary to swim en route to Newera Elia; however, as the river had only been impassable once or twice before within the memory of any one there, we had trusted to chance, and had omitted sending anybody forward to ascertain its condition. We were horribly disgusted, therefore, after a ride of ten miles, to find ourselves on the brink of a river nearly as broad as the Thames at Hampton, rushing along, foaming and impetuous, at a speed and with a depth of stream that forbade any idea of our being able to cross our horses. The ferry-boat, indeed, which consisted of two canoes, fastened together at a distance of about two feet, and which no force of waves or current could have capsized, might cross by ascending the stream in the back current for some