TAMARIND-TREES-PUNCHY-FEMALE ELEPHANTS-THUNDERSTORM -MAJOR ROGERS-TEMPLE-NEWERA ELIA.

NEXT day we started off early to a river about ten miles distant, said to have abundance of game in its neighbourhood. I started on foot, intending to ride later; but Punchy took it into his head to elude the vigilance of his horsekeeper, and enjoy a private lark of his own with some village cows; he was at last caught after considerable loss of time and difficulty, but too late for me to ride.

Our route lay through very close jungle, said to be so infested by bears, that the natives would not traverse it under parties of twos and threes. We worked hard all the morning, but without success, and at midday coming upon an encampment of Moormen, cutting ebony, we breakfasted. They were, as usual, excessively fine men, and their mental and physical superiority over their Cingalese compatriots were equally conspicuous. After the midday repast, they performed their

usual ablutions and prostrations in the direction of the shrine of the prophet, and then returned to their work. Our Tamul coolies, and Cingalese guides, never prayed, for the very good reason that they never had anything whatever to worship. We continued tracking all day, chiefly in the beds of rivers. The sand was very soft and deep, and the footmarks of every animal or bird that crossed it were distinctly visible. We saw the trail in the sand of some very large snakes; some must have been nearly as thick as one's leg; the elephant spoor was really almost as thick, as I before remarked, as the footmarks of sheep on a dusty road; there must have been scores in the neighbourhood, and it was excessively aggravating not being able to "realize "any.

We had had a very hot day's work, and coming to some tamarind-trees, we halted, and filled our pockets with the fruit; it was scarcely ripe, but the acidity alleviated our thirst. The tamarindtree is sacred to the chief of the devils, and like the Upas-tree, its exhalations during the night are said to be fatal,—both to man and beast, who may sleep under it, but that I believe is imaginary. It is supposed by Pundits, that the scriptural simile of the "wicked in great power, spreading himself like a green bay-tree," is an

allusion to the tamarind-tree, The wood is excessively hard, and it never sheds its leaves. Punchy was so disagreeable in his increasing attempts to bite my feet, or his next neighbours, whether bi or quadruped, that I dismounted and handed him over to his only friend the horsekeeper; he followed him tolerably well for a mile or so, till we came to an open patna, where was a large herd of water buffalo feeding, when I suddenly heard a cry of distress, and turning round, saw Punchy dragging his unfortunate attendant, who had dropped his bundle, and lost his turban, at full speed across the rough ground, to the imminent danger of his neck, and the utter derangement of his person, neighing and kicking up his heels, followed by the whole herd of buffalo, wondering, and more than half terrified, at the exhibition.

An old Cingalese had joined our camp the day before, and accompanied us on our hunting trip; he was a headman, and evidently a man of the highest consideration amongst his countrymen; he was by way of being, a wit, and kept all the coolies and trackers in a roar of laughter; their respect and attention to him was, however, accounted for, by the fact of his being "dives Malabathri et Pecudum," rich in betel and cattle.

The old saw, "Chi ha quattrini ha amici," is as true in the wilds of Ceylon, as in the metropolis of Europe.

7th. In the afternoon we went to the tank where our grand engagement had taken place some days previously. The elephants had swelled and burst, and herds of wild hog were now discussing their contents. They eat elephants with the greatest gusto, and as many as a dozen have been seen, when disturbed, scampering from the interior of one elephant. We had occupied our old position on the rock for several hours, and were getting rather impatient; when, about half an hour before sunset, we descried two old elephants and two punchies stalk deliberately out of the jungle at the extreme end of the tank, and proceed into the water. We immediately started off to intercept them; they were at least a mile distant, and the run across the dried margin of the tank, perforated with elephant spoor, holes some eighteen inches deep and about four feet in circumference, was very hard and dangerous work. The falls were numerous, and from the excessive hardness of the ground, most painful. Shakspeare, whose knowledge of natural history is not always the most correct, talks of "elephants being betrayed with holes, bears with glasses, unicorns with trees,"

&c. &c., but my experience would lead me to` believe that the former betray with holes much more frequently than they themselves suffer in that way. D outran the party and came first to the elephants; he had seen them move, and cut off their retreat. The old one turned sharp round at his approach, but, as usual, a single shot laid her low. D-continued his meteor course (to use a poetical simile), and overtaking the two young ones, dropped each of them with a single ball; thus bagging his three elephants with three shots; not bad work! As the female generally turns to protect her young, we now made sure of the fourth, an enormous female; but in this instance personal nervousness overpowered natural affection, and leaving her progeny to be deprived of life and shorn of its caudal termination by our ruthless coolies, she scuttled off into the jungle at a pace that defied all our attempts to overtake her. This want of feeling in a mother elephant is so rare, that I hardly believe the punchy could have been her own. I rather imagine it must have belonged to some lady friend, who had perhaps asked her "to take it out for a walk, and let the little dear pick some lotus in the Kitlani Tank." Elephants never have more than one at a birth, but females are